Interfax-China reported that China cancelled more than one third of its rare earths mining licenses as part of ongoing efforts to restructure the industry and curb overexploitation of the 17 minerals used in high tech products.

The Ministry of Land and Resources revoked 46 permits out of a total of 113, mainly for mines in southern China where the majority of the country’s medium and heavy rare earth reserves are concentrated. The region’s largest rare earths miner, Ganzhou Rare Earth Mineral Industry Company Limited saw its licenses cut by half from 88 to 44.

The cancellations further increased the proportion of licenses in the hands of leading state owned players making Inner Mongolia Baotou Steel Rare Earth Hi-tech Company Limited and Guangdong Rising Nonferrous Metals Group Company Limited the only permit holders in their respective provinces.

The development comes on the heels of regulations published by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in August that raised minimum capacity requirements for miners and processors. MIIT’s changes could reduce industry capacity by 20%.

Efforts to restructure the industry are partly aimed at conserving dwindling resources China produces about 90% of the world’s rare earths supply despite only holding about a quarter of total reserves.

The country’s first white paper on the industry published in June said Baotou Rare Earth, the world’s largest producer and the only player in northern China has exhausted about two thirds of the reserves in its main mining area. The reserve to extraction ratio for ion absorption deposits the source of the majority of medium and heavy rare earths in southern provinces moreover slumped from 50:1 to 15:1 in the past two decades.

Source - Interfax-China

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