The government's consideration is to protect resources and environment through export control and realize sustainable development.
In the following two years, the idea of rare earth integration was gradually systematized, and the strategy of rare earth groups was also put on the table. On 2011May 10, the State Council issued "Several Opinions on Promoting the Healthy Development of Rare Earth Industry". Since then, China has launched a series of rectification around the development, smelting separation and circulation market order of rare earth resources, and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has put forward a plan to set up a large-scale rare earth industry group.
Rare earth resources can be divided into light rare earth and medium heavy rare earth. The former is dominated by bastnaesite in Baiyun Obo, Baotou, Mianning, Sichuan and Weishan, Shandong, while the latter is dominated by ionic minerals in the south, which are abundant in Jiangxi, Guangdong, Fujian, Guangxi and Yunnan.
At that time, Baotou Steel had the posture of unifying the northern rare earth market, but among the medium and heavy rare earths in the south, Minmetals Group and China National Color Corporation (000758. SZ) and China Aluminum, as well as Ganzhou Rare Earth, Jiangtong and Guangsheng Nonferrous Metals (600259. SH) and Xiamen Tungsten Industry (600549. SH) has been very active.
As a strategic resource of the country, whoever owns rare earths can "get rich overnight", which has been verified when the price of rare earths skyrockets. Similarly, integration itself means the redistribution of benefits. No enterprise really wants to be absent from the process of drawing a new rare earth map.
Facts have also proved that these enterprises all participated in the integration wave of rare earth industry in the south without exception.
"The strategy of large rare earth groups has been adjusted several times. From the beginning, one was established in the north, one in the south, two or three later, and now the "5+ 1" plan, the prototype of rare earth integration has basically taken shape. " Du Shuaibing, a rare earth analyst of Baichuan Information, said in an interview with this reporter.
Recently, the State Council adopted the work plan of "1+5" to form a large-scale national rare earth group. It is clear that North Baotou Steel (Group) Company, China Minmetals, China Aluminum, Ganzhou Rare Earth, Guangdong Rare Earth and Xiamen Tungsten Industry will take the lead respectively to further promote the merger and reorganization and form a large-scale rare earth enterprise group. These six enterprises will be spliced into a new map of rare earths in China.
Among them, Minmetals Group is the first central enterprise to set foot in the rare earth industry, with the strongest strength.
According to Jiao Jian, general manager of Minmetals Nonferrous Metals Co., Ltd., Minmetals' strategy for rare earths, especially medium and heavy rare earths, is to realize the relative concentration of resources through effective integration in China, so as to master the right to speak.
In June 5438 +065438+2008 10, Minmetals Nonferrous Metals Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Minmetals Group, joined Jiangxi Ganxian Jinhong Rare Earth Co., Ltd. and Dingnan Dahua New Materials Co., Ltd. to form Minmetals Rare Earth Co., Ltd. and successfully settled in Jiangxi. Since then, Minmetals Group has continued to "grab land" in Hunan, Guangdong, Guangxi and other places, and finally formed a relatively complete rare earth industrial chain today. At present, only six rare earth ore separation enterprises in the bid of No.5 Mine account for half of the rare earth separation capacity in the south.
Compared with Minmetals Group, Chinalco is a "new recruit" in the rare earth industry, but as the leader of domestic non-ferrous enterprises, it is also listed as the leader of rare earth integration. "Our rare earth industry has grown from scratch, and now it has obtained the qualification of a large rare earth group, which can be developed in Guangxi, Jiangsu, Sichuan and other places." Xiong Weiping, chairman of Chinalco, once told this reporter.
On June 7th, 20 1 1, Chinalco established Chinalco Rare Earth (Jiangsu) Co., Ltd. together with five rare earth separation enterprises and 1 trading company in Jiangsu Province, thus obtaining a rare earth separation capacity of 34,700 tons/year. In order to ensure the supply of rare earth resources, Chinalco has signed a number of strategic cooperation agreements with Guangxi, Jiangxi, Guangdong and Fujian.
Ethan, a spokesperson for Chinalco, said that Chinalco has gradually formed a technology research and development base based on "Youyan Rare Earth New Materials Co., Ltd.", a resource guarantee base based on Guangdong and other provinces, and an industrial layout based on four separated enterprises in Jiangsu.
Today, Chinalco's industrial tentacles extend to Sichuan Province. On March 26th, Chinalco Sichuan Rare Earth Co., Ltd., led by Chinalco, was formally established, and related rare earth industries in Sichuan Province will be gradually integrated through this platform in the future.
According to the earlier thinking, the ionic rare earth in the south will form the goal that the industrial concentration of the top three rare earth enterprises will reach 80%. However, in order to prevent being eaten by rivals, local powerful enterprises gradually established their own rare earth kingdom by wooing local governments.
At an industry conference two years ago, Zhong Kexiang, vice president of Xiamen Tungsten Industry, told China Business News that the status quo of rare earth integration in the south was somewhat different from the original expectations of the country: with the support of local governments, Guangdong and Fujian successively set up their own local rare earth industry groups focusing on Guangsheng Nonferrous Metals and Xiamen Tungsten Industry, and even Ganzhou Rare Earth, which has made slow progress, has made substantial breakthroughs.
"The relevant meeting held in the State Council has agreed in principle that Ganzhou Rare Earth Group will take the lead in setting up the largest rare earth group in South China." Leng Xinsheng, mayor of Ganzhou City, recently publicly stated that Ganzhou has obtained the "road map" of the National Rare Earth Group.
As early as last March, Ganzhou City was ready to set up Ganzhou Rare Earth Group Co., Ltd., a large-scale rare earth enterprise group integrating mining, smelting separation, processing, trade and research and development. It has become the leading rare earth enterprise and the largest resource platform in the south, and is currently the only mine owner of Ganzhou rare earth.
Different from the above-mentioned separatist regime of rare earth princes in the south, the north, which is dominated by light rare earths, will form a large group. According to the previous plan, the strategy of Northern Group will be led by Baotou Steel Group, combined with Gansu Rare Earth Group Company, and absorbed the backbone enterprises in Sichuan and Shandong.
It is noteworthy that although Sichuan Province is dominated by light rare earths, the reserves of its two main mines, Mianning Maoniuping Rare Earth Mine and Dechang Continental Trough Rare Earth Mine, are among the highest in China. This unique advantage has naturally become a "fragrant cake" in the eyes of large enterprises. Among a large number of foreign "gold diggers", Jiangtong Group has been operating in Mianning for many years, and it is expected to gain a share in this regional integration.
In addition, the same strength, but not included in the list of big groups, is the subsidiary of this enterprise, China National Color Co., Ltd., which has established a joint venture with the local government to establish a rare earth mining company. The 7,000-ton/year separation project being operated cannot be ignored.
Interest game
"Integration will still be one of the cores of the structural adjustment of China's rare earth industry in the future, focusing on the integration of smelting and separation links and the integration of the entire upstream and downstream industrial chain." Chen Huan, a rare earth market research analyst at Antaike, said.
However, in the process of integration, not only the game between central enterprises and local governments is full, but also problems such as how to straighten out the internal chain of large groups and how to solve the shortage of production indicators are exposed one by one.
Zhong Kexiang revealed that some domestic central enterprises also went to Fujian Province to discuss cooperation with Xiamen Tungsten Industry, "as long as they have ideas," but Fujian Province chose to support the backbone enterprises in the province and rejected the kindness of central enterprises.
Yan Chunhua, an academician of China Academy of Sciences, once told this reporter that on the issue of rare earth industry integration, local governments and the central government have the same interests and unified strategies, but because of "different ways of thinking and different positions, there are some differences in tactics".
Now, in the rare earth integration in Sichuan Province, similar contradictions have emerged. While Chinalco announced its entry into the rare earth industry in Sichuan, Sichuan Jiangtong Rare Earth Company, a subsidiary of Jiangtong, and five other enterprises jointly initiated the establishment of "Sichuan Jinpanxi Rare Earth (Group) Co., Ltd.", which is also a large-scale rare earth enterprise group integrating mining, smelting, separation, processing and research and development, and has a complete industrial chain.
During the "two sessions" this year, Wang Hailin, director of the Sichuan Economic and Information Committee, even said that since there are no powerful rare earth enterprises in Sichuan, Jiangtong will lead the restructuring of rare earths in Sichuan in the future. However, it remains to be seen how Jiangtong, which is not among the six major groups, will "confront" Chinalco in the future.
Even though the integration of light rare earths in the north is relatively clear, up to now, although Baotou Steel has signed a restructuring agreement with relevant enterprises in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, the substantive restructuring work has been delayed, and it is not clear when the merger and reorganization of enterprises in Gansu, Shandong and other provinces will be completed.
"After the integration, it is still' fragmented' and has not played a centralized role in the rare earth market." An industry insider told this reporter that several separation plants in Jiangsu, like Chinalco, basically maintain old customers, and Chinalco only cares about pricing and invoicing. It is not clear how to get to Sichuan next.
The deeper problem lies in how to solve the problem of "eating" of internal enterprises after the establishment of these large groups.
Du Shuaibing said that the big problem in the later stage of integration is how to solve overcapacity. "Like Baotou Steel, after the integration is completed, has the entire industrial chain been straightened out? The state has given it 50,000 tons of indicators, and how to distribute it is a problem. " He said.
It is understood that at present, the total output index issued by the state to enterprises is 93,800 tons, but according to incomplete statistics of the market, the domestic rare earth production capacity has exceeded 400,000 tons at present, and the problem of "insufficient indicators and private mining" has never been completely solved.
"The whole rare earth industry, in addition to the regular output, there are a large number of private mines, and private mines can't be hit. Even if the group is integrated and the production capacity is so large, what should the enterprise do? " The aforementioned Baotou enterprise executives said.
Du Shuaibing's worry is that after the completion of rare earth integration, if private mines cannot be attacked, other small and medium-sized enterprises can still use them. Considering the cost and other factors, after the export liberalization, the integrated large groups may not have the advantages as some small and medium-sized enterprises. "Some companies have been doing rare earths for many years, which is very old-fashioned. They can't turn it off in a word. " He said.
In view of this situation, Gan Yong, president of China Rare Earth Industry Association, admitted to the media during the "two sessions" that the domestic rare earth industry integration has just begun and has a long way to go. "We need a truly standardized protection system for rare metals and strategic resources, and we need to protect strategic resources such as rare earths from the legislative level."