Gong Shuai, the nonferrous materials analyst of Research & Development Center of GF Securities visited Asian Metal on the afternoon of August 9, 2017 and had a conversation on the current rare earth market with Eric Qiu, the rare earth market analyst of Asian Metal.
From left: Gong Shuai and Eric Qiu
The two sides had an in-depth exchange of views on the current prices trend and market inventories of products like praseodymium-neodymium and dysprosium, etc. and conducted analysis on the possibility that prices for praseodymium-neodymium oxide and praseodymium-neodymium mischmetal rise to RMB600,000/t (USD89,942/t) and RMB750,000/t (USD112,427/t) respectively. Analyst Gong stated that downstream customers found it difficult to accept the price uptrend in a short term. On July 11, the downstream magnets manufacturers suggested a rational rise in raw material prices during the magnets working conference held by Association of China Rare Earth Industry, but the Department of Raw Materials Industry (Rare Earth Office) of MIIT called on China's six major rare earth groups this week to sell at profitable prices. However, the tight supply in the market has yet to improve. Analyst Eric expressed that, from the point of view of downstream market, the magnets industry holds the characteristics of a relatively poor customer loyalty, excess capacity, product homogeneity and industry dispersion, etc. However, prices for raw material surge and are still expected to going up in the short term. Some medium-and-small sized magnets manufacturers is struggling to operate due to a small quantity of stocks, cash-flow shortages, relatively low product profitability and great horizontal competition pressure. China's Magnets industry faces massive reshuffle.
The two sides also had an in-depth communication on the capacity and output as well as the tax management of NdFeB waste recycling industry.
