China Seeks to Stabilize Prices of Rare Earth

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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China controls 95% of the world’s rare earth deposits and is preparing to take measures to control the fluctuating prices with strategic buying and selling of the minerals vital to the electronics industry.

Domestic demand for rare earths tumbled last year after Beijing tightened controls over production and mining and many separation plants closed down after customers retreated from the sky-high prices
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Doesn't Brazil also have huge deposits of this stuff and the Chinese have invested so much over there the government has basically given them a monopoly to export it, at least thats what was told to me by someone at work.
 
MajorDomo said:
China controls 95% of the world’s rare earth deposits and is preparing to take measures to control the fluctuating prices with strategic buying and selling of the minerals vital to the electronics industry.
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I've heard conflicting stories that either 1) China possesses the largest estimated deposits of raw materials or 2) many countries have large deposits but only China has the processing capability to refine them.
 
Good thing we have a free market. Except it isn't when Chinas central government is controlling these prices, OPEC controls oil prices etc. etc.
 
Zyme said:
I've heard conflicting stories that either 1) China possesses the largest estimated deposits of raw materials or 2) many countries have large deposits but only China has the processing capability to refine them.
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It's 2. Rare earths are actually not rare at all, it's just that China has built up the infrastructure to mine them cost effectively.
 
I recall hearing that a HUGE deposit of rare earth minerals possibly rivaling those of China was found in the U.S. last year some time.

I haven't heard anything new about it lately though. I wonder what happened with that.
 
Zarathustra[H];1038788772 said:
I recall hearing that a HUGE deposit of rare earth minerals possibly rivaling those of China was found in the U.S. last year some time.

I haven't heard anything new about it lately though. I wonder what happened with that.
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This is probably what I am remembering.
 
I thought I had read that China was able to supply rare earth metals for so cheap (until fairly recently) that it really wasn't profitable for american mining companies to produce them. I thought Molycorp had a rare earth mine but closed it because of that. We will probably start seeing other companies in the market now, I doubt China will "stabilize" the price at an exceptionally low rate.
 
jober1 said:
I thought I had read that China was able to supply rare earth metals for so cheap (until fairly recently) that it really wasn't profitable for american mining companies to produce them. I thought Molycorp had a rare earth mine but closed it because of that. We will probably start seeing other companies in the market now, I doubt China will "stabilize" the price at an exceptionally low rate.
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It's the good old trick of dropping prices (and potentially selling at a loss) until your competitors go out of business, and then raising prices to even higher levels than you could have before.

Highly unethical, and illegal, though easy to get around if you really want to, as a private enterprise in the U.S. Walmart has been accused of this strategy numerous times when they enter a new town, but nothing has ever stuck. The Chinese however, don't have to abide by U.S. law, so for them it matters even less.

I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing happens with solar panel production, now that they have been selling at a government subsidized loss for years, and our manufacturers are mostly history.
 
China has been extorting the world for the last few years by driving up prices and also just plain witholding rare earth minerals to get their way politically and financially in global markets.

All the former rare earth mines that closed down due to China selling cheap are now firing back up... and it looks like nothing is going to stop it.

Behind the scenes, China pissed off a good chunk of the globe with this heavy handed control of these minerals.

You can literally bring modern technology and society down and destroy it without a steady supply of these things. You cannot make high tech anything without them. Phones, computers, military hardware... nothing.
 
China controls 95 percent of the world's rare earths market, not 95% of the earth's minerals. Just the market.
 
China control 95% of the earth's REM deposits, they simply are the only ones who are mining that rapidly. As far as I'm concerned let China turn their whole country into a polluted cesspool all the while providing us with cheap goods, then when they start getting all DeBeers on the world, the world simply says "Ok we'll mine our own, that costs more because we spend more money not fucking up our country"
 
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