Myanmar rare earth mining stagnation impact geometry? China Rare Earths, Northern Rare Earths respond

According to Huatai Securities, Myanmar's local rare earth mining has been stagnant, the border is closed, and China's rare earth raw material imports have been blocked. Myanmar is dominated by medium and heavy rare earth ion mines, with a global share of 11% of raw ore production in 2023. Myanmar is one of China's important sources of rare earth raw materials, from January to September 2024, China imported 31,000 tons of rare earth oxides from Myanmar, accounting for 74.9% of the total imports of oxides in the same period.

For the stagnation of rare earth mining in Myanmar, the Southern Finance and Economics all-media reporter contacted the investor relations department of China Rare Earth and Northern Rare Earth as an investor. China Rare Earth related person said, we also see some media related information. At present, the company has its own mining, can ensure their own needs. Northern rare earths sources said that the original imported mines, now it is equivalent to less supply. For the event will affect the rare earth prices, China Rare Earths sources said, this is not a good answer; Northern Rare Earths sources said, the supply is less, the raw material side of the balance may be tight.

In 2024, the State continued to implement total mining control on rare earth mines, and according to the data published by the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the first batch of total rare earth mining control targets for 2024 was 135,000 tons, which was an increase of 12.5% compared with the first batch of 2023, of which the target for rock-type rare earth mines (with light rare earths as the main focus) increased by 14.5% year-on-year, and the target for ion-type rare earth mines (with medium- and heavy-heavy-heavy-heavy-heavy-heavy-heavy-heavy-heavy-heavy-heavy-heavy-heavy-heavy-earth mines decreased by 7.3% year-on-year.

The alternative to China's heavy rare earth supply is Myanmar. The region of Myanmar, close to China's Yunnan Province, is also one of the distribution areas for heavy rare earths.

Since the global rare earth smelting capacity was basically all in China at that time, we can assume that Myanmar provided half of the global heavy rare earth production.

According to Huatai Securities, Myanmar, which is dominated by medium and heavy rare earth ion ores, is the world's third largest raw rare earth ore producer, and according to the USGS, Myanmar's raw rare earth ore production will account for 11% in 2023. Myanmar is also one of China's important sources of rare earth raw materials, according to the General Administration of Customs statistics, from January to September 2024, China imported 31,000 tons of rare earth oxides from Myanmar, a year-on-year decrease of 3%, accounting for 74.9% of the total imports of oxides in the same period; during the same period, China imported 8,537 tons of rare earth compounds from Myanmar, a year-on-year decrease of 57.5%, accounting for 49%.

In 2023, affected by the supply and demand in the rare earth industry market, the prices of major rare earth products, represented by praseodymium and neodymium products, have continued to oscillate downward since the beginning of the year, and the average price for the whole year was lower year-on-year, with the rare earth market running weakly as a whole. 2024 In the first half of the year , there was a steady increase in the market supply of rare earth products, and insufficient demand from downstreams, and the market was running weakly.