"In the long run, rare earth, tungsten and antimony are China's dominant metal mineral resources, and scarcity determines that it has a very high strategic value. With the government's enhanced awareness of such strategic resources, the country will further strictly limit tungsten. The total mining volume and export quotas for mines and antimony ore will help stabilize and increase the prices of tungsten-germanium metals.†This is the voice from the rare earth-tungsten industry cooperation promotion meeting on the 27th and 28th of this month. The participating experts are confident in the future of small metals.
The series of policies "protects" small metals
Obviously, the state’s support for the small metal industry is a source of market confidence. In recent years, the state has issued protective policies for small and advantageous minerals. For example, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology promulgated the “Entry Requirements for the Magnesium Industry†to raise the threshold for industry entry; the Ministry of Land and Resources promulgated the Provisional Regulations on the Management of Exploration and Exploitation of Certain Minerals for Protective Mining, and the Controlling Indicators for the Total Mining of Tantalum Ore and Mining Minerals in 2010 The "Notice" and other policies control the total amount of mining. In addition, there are corresponding protection policies on export quotas and export tariffs.
The introduction of a series of supporting policies has enabled the market performance of the relevant small metals to be immediate. In the first half of this year, hail prices rose by 45% and tungsten prices rose by 16.82%. In addition, such metals as antimony and antimony oxide increased by 51.23% and 36.29% respectively.
Globally, China’s production of rare earth, tungsten and antimony accounted for more than 80% of the global share, and “congenital advantages†are the most prominent. With the advancement of national reserves and industrial integration, rare earth, tungsten and antimony will have more full pricing power. At the same time, the growth engine of the new economy (new energy vehicles, solar energy, large-scale fans, variable frequency air conditioners, aerospace, etc.) will drive the explosive growth of rare metals such as rare earths, tungsten, indium, and bismuth downstream.
Take tungsten ore as an example. Hua Yi United Securities Researcher Ye Yu said that after Minmetals has successfully acquired Hunan Nonferrous Metals, a relatively monopolistic situation in tungsten market is being formed, which will enhance the strategic resource attributes of tungsten and help the country implement various industrial policies. Based on the profound changes in the industry's supply structure, domestic and overseas demand is also steadily recovering. He believes that the tungsten market is entering a boom period and prices have entered an upward path.