Home>Metal Events>12th Rare Earth Summit

On May 27-28, 2021, the 12th Rare Earth Summit, hosted by Asian Metal, sponsored by Biolantanidos and supported by Rare Earth Information, was held in Hangzhou, China. The topics of this summit related with rare earth concentrates in Latin America, Australia, monazite concentrate in China, scandium oxide, rare earth fluoride, rare earth magnets, rare earth hydrogen storage alloy, rare earth catalyst, rare earth applications in wind power and new energy areas. More than 150 representatives from China attended this event.

At 9:00am of May 28, Mr. Hao Zhao, Sales Director of Asian Metal, gave the welcome speech, and then Mr. Rodrigo Ceballos, CEO of Biolantanidos delivered the opening speech. Afterward, Mr. Rodrigo Ceballos made a speech on "Rare Earth Industry Situation in Latin America and Biolantanidos Rare Earth Project". He noted that rare earth is the strategic element for electromobility and clean energy. He displayed the increasing consumption volume of rare earth permanent materials in EV, permanent magnet motor, Offshore Wind Power, E-bikes, Global Smart Homes, Electronics and Drones and estimates an annual average increasing rate of 10%. He also illustrated the Electromobility and Renewable Energy in Latin America and believes that the world depends on Chinese REO Mining Supply, especially on HREE upon the situation of tight supply of PrNd oxide and shortage of Dy oxide. At last, he recommended the Biolanthanidos rare earth project's proportion, including yttrium 43.4%, lanthanum 12.7%, neodymium 12%, praseodymiunm 3%, dysprosium 6.2%, terbium 0.9%, lutetium 0.6% and other rare earths 21.2% and introduced the project's process and timeline.

Later on, Ms. Joanna Jia, Vice Chairman and President of Sales of Hangzhou Permanent Magnet Group Co. gave a report on "Magnet Users' Survival Strategies under the Risk of Rare Earth Raw Material Prices Fluctuations". Ms. Jia noted that rare earth permanent magnet have started the "fourth generation R&D" and sintered NdFeB magnet accounts for more than 90% share of rare earth magnetic materials. Besides, Germany has become the main export destination of China's rare earth permanent magnet material products. She detailed analyzed price fluctuations of raw materials for NdFeB, La/CeFeB and SmCo magnets. She also introduced study of substitution among SmCo & NdFeB permanent magnet, cost reduction and application of La/Ce permanent magnet as well as magnetic simulation analysis.

Afterwards, Mr. Hui Teng, Global Purchase Director of Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy shared the presentation on "Win with Wind". He pointed out that wind capacity in 20 years represents five times of the accumulated historical additions to date and offshore expected to grow almost tenfold within 10 years while onshore expected to peak in 2021 partly due to COVID impact and would stay at high level afterwards, with increasing share of hybrid projects. He noted that global expansion of Offshore wind with Europe as biggest region, UK for example, 2030 outlook of 40GW for the UK，CfD 4 running in 2021 with expected award of about 9GW of new of wind capacity. Besides, Hydrogen and hybrids as new adjacent markets unlocking demand and globally above 50 GW wind projects for hydrogen production already announced. He stressed that RE magnet cost is key for final turbine, about 4.2% of total cost and predicted that RE magnet demand for Wind keeps increasing to about 10,000t in 2028. He expects the upstream raw material suppliers would win with the wind with reasonable prices fluctuations.

After the tea break, Mr. Chris Jenny, GM of marketing from Lynas Corporation gave the speech on "Sustainable Rare Earths Supply". Chris introduced their developing industrial footprint, the traceable rare earths supply chain and life cycle assessments based on measured performance by Lynas (mine to oxide), GQD (metal), NEO (magnetic powder), Grundfos (motor making). He also made a comparison between induction motor and permanent magnet (NdFeB) motor on carbon reduction performance. The company's division is committed to being a leading responsible and sustainable supplier of rare earth raw materials.

Soon afterwards, Mr. Hongzhou Liu, Project Director of Xiamen Tungsten Co. shared the audiences with the speech of "Current Status and Development Trend of Rare Earth Hydrogen Storage Alloy industry". Mr. Liu said that there are many hydrogen storage alloy companies in China with a total production capacity of over 25,000tpy, which is too excessive. However, there are only three hydrogen storage alloy companies left in Japan, each with an annual production capacity of more than 3,000t and the total production capacity reaches about 15,000tpy and the production capacity utilization rate stays relatively high. China's annual sales of rare earth hydrogen storage alloy materials have basically stayed at 9,000t since 2011. And the rapid development of Toyota Ni-MH HEV market stimulated the growth of the alloy powder market in the recent years. He analyzed the main growth direction on Ni-MH hybrid vehicle market, onboard standby power market, application in rail transit area and related application in solid hydrogen storage area. He pointed out that bottlenecks of the development of rare earth hydrogen storage stay at insufficient research and development capability, slow industrialization of new materials, to be improved performance and be reduced cost.

After lunch at around 2:00pm, Mr. Jiangqiang Wang, Deputy General Manager of Fuji Kosan Co. made a speech on "Overview on Japan’s magnet and rare earth waste". He introduced the major enterprises of magnetic materials, Ni-MH battery anode materials and abrasives in Japan. He pointed out that Shin-Etsu Chemical and Hitachi Metals own the complete production chain from raw material to end magnet and also have complete waste material recycling systems and capacities while other magnet producers have complete production lines from alloy production to magnet production but did not have their own recycling systems, which provides the development space for Fuji Kosan Co.'s magnetic material waste recycling business. He detailed sources of magnet wastes from magnet production process, dismantled electronics package, long-term stocks, scientific and technological tests. He believes that the irresistible EV trend boosts demand for magnet and 80% of equipment of Toyota hybrid vehicles shows increasing demand for motor magnet.

Whereafter, Mr. Kun Xu, Deputy General Manager of CNNC Hunan Jinyuan New Material Co. gave a report on "Development Status and Market Prospects of Monazite Resources in China". Mr. Xu introduced that their company, which has rare earth, Uranium and Thorium businesses, is currently the unique Chinese manufacturer with the qualification for the disposal of monazite acid slag and the only production line for comprehensive utilization of monazite in China. He pointed out that the monazite acid slag accumulated in Hunan's history exceeds 30,000t, and more than 6,000t would be produced every year. Besides, the disposal of acid-soluble slag seriously restricts the sustainable development of the industry. He estimated that the monazite consumption would be 30,000t in 2018, converting 35,000t of 45% rare earth chloride flakes, with 18,000t of rare earth oxides produced including 3,683t of neodymium praseodymium oxide. The company fully carried out the import and production of monazite since 2019. By 2021, its Hunan monazite comprehensive utilization project alone will increase its annual monazite consumption capacity to reach more than 15,000t. Considering their new project of 15,000t in Jiangxi province which is under construction, he supposes the consumption capacity of monazite concentrate in China would reach about 60,000t by the end of 2022.

Afterwards, Mr. Qing Yang, President of Longnan Longyi Heavy Rare Earth Technology Co. gave a speech on "Application Overview of Rare Earths in Iron & Steel and Magnesium Alloy". Mr. Yang sorted out the upstream and downstream rare earth industrial chains and emphasized the application of rare earth in cast iron, steel and magnesium alloy. He indicated that ductile iron market has limited room to increase and its dependence on rare earths would decline with improving iron melt quality (low oxygen and sulphur content and high purity), so the consumption of rare earths are unlikely to rise sharply. On the contrary, CGI market is of great potential. It relies heavily on rare earths now and records high remained rare earths, so the consumption of rare earths in CGI market would see substantial rise. Besides, rare earths are of great potential in steel applications and the application in die casting steel becomes mature and that in continuous casting steel are in problem-solving stage, with problems to be addressed soon. As for the rare earth application in magnesium alloy, he believes that rare earths are most effective elements to fill disadvantages of magnesium alloy, so rare earths are indispensable to the development of magnesium alloy; Addition of rare earths can both increase the strength of magnesium alloy and improve the plasticity of magnesium alloy, which broaden application scope of magnesium alloy. Magnesium alloy with rare earths are widely used in space, high-speed rail, bicycle, motorcycle, UAV and 3C parts. At last, he predicted that the output of rare earth magnesium alloy would reach 3 million tons and consumption of rare earth would reach 50,000 tons in the next five to ten years.

After the tea break, Mr. Runsheng Zhuo, President of Rezel Catalysts Co., gave a presentation on "Progress of Application of Rare Earth in Catalytic Materials and New Energy Field". He noted that China is leading in the rare earth production due to their various developed technologies. Among them, China's mining and separation account for 80-85%, conversion of metals and alloys share more than 95% and the magnet manufacturing accounts for more than 80%. He emphasized in different series of rare earth catalysts, including metal-rare earth alloys, phase diagram of metal-rare Earth alloys, nano-precious metals and nano rare-earth oxides, rare-earth Metal-organic frameworks, rare-earth triflates and rare earth containing polyoxometalate. He introduced the rare earth application in petroleum cracking catalyst, environmental catalysis, TWC and Heterogeneous photocatalysis and analyzed rare earth materials application in the field of new energy vehicles, including rare earth permanent magnet motor, rare earth power battery, catalyst in three-way catalytic converter and ceramic materials in oxygen sensor. Finally, he put forward that, "in the wave of the new energy revolution in the future, how to improve the technical level of China's rare earth application field, to reach the leading position in the world and to lead the trend of the world's rare earth application technology is a great challenge and mission for all rare earth workers and new materials workers in China!"

Later on, Mr. Jianping Liu, Deputy General Manager of Ganzhou Shilei Rare Earth Materials Co., delivered a report of "Industry Status Quo and Market Analysis of Chinese Rare Earth Fluorides". Mr. Liu introduced the rare earth fluoride application on metal production, diffusing dysprosium and terbium in sintered Nd-Fe-B magnet grain boundary, optical crystals, medical and pharmaceutical areas. He interpreted Industrial Structure Adjustment Guidance on rare earth fluoride and expounded the equipment development history from casting-type fluoride furnace, small alloy fluoride furnace (20-40kg), vertical fluoride furnace (100-150kg), horizontal (round) fluoride furnace (350-550kg), horizontal (square) fluoride furnace (550-800kg) to current horizontal alloy fluoride furnace (800-1,000kg). Now the company owns eight horizontal alloy fluoride furnaces (800-1,000kg) with an annual production capacity of 1,000t for different species of rare earth fluorides.

At last, Mr. Hua Su, Deputy Chief Engineer of MCC Ruimu New Energy SciTec Co. shared the audiences with the report on "Analysis on the Status Quo and Trends of China's Scandium Industry". Mr. Su introduced the global scandium resources distribution, domestic mainstream process of scandium oxide from zirconium oxychloride, titanium dioxide waste acid and laterite nickel ore. He also illustrated the major scandium oxide producers, scandium oxide price trend, and the applications in SOFC, Al-Sc alloy, scandium metal and target material industries. The number of related patents with China as the earliest priority country records 1,630, ranking first and the global patents for aluminum-based alloys mainly come from five countries. China has 290 applications, accounting for 48% of all patents; Russia accounts for 16% of the total patents; the United States accounts for 14%. MCC New Energy uses Ni & Co hydroxide to produce NCM precursor and high-purity scandium oxide with the annual design capacity of 40,000t of NCM precursor and 20t of high-purity scandium oxide. The company reached designed production capacity of scandium oxide 99.9%min since September 2019 and thier highest monthly output recorded 1.6t. Besides, the half-industrialized production line built by MCC Ruimu New Energy is the first industrialized production line of Al-Sc master alloy by molten salt electrolysis, which could produce 100t of the material annually. The company successfully produced Al-Sc master alloy Sc 2% since May 2020.

At around 17:30pm of May 28, the 12th Rare Earth Summit of Asian Metal closed smoothly with the great support from sponsors, partners and participants.

In recent years, Asian Metal has successfully held rare earth forums or summits in China and the United States, which received great support and cooperation from market insiders. Sincere thanks to you! Asian Metal will continue to march forward with professional spirit and provide timely and accurate market information about metals for participants. Let’s meet in the next rare earth summit!