BEIJING- China has raised its output quota for rare earth minerals in the first half of 2020 by 10 percent from a year earlier, a government notice showed on Wednesday, looking to step up production after a coronavirus outbreak disrupted activity in the sector.
China is the world’s top producer of rare earths, a prized group of 17 elements used in everything from ceramics to consumer electronics. The quotas are typically issued twice a year and closely watched as a supply indicator.
The first rare earth mining output quota for 2020 was set at 66,000 tons, equal to 50 percent of last year’s total allocation of 132,000 tons, according to a notice from the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
That is up from 60,000 tons for the first half of 2019.
The notice made no mention of a smelting and separation quota for the processing of rare earth ore into material that can be used by manufacturers. The smelting and separation quota is usually issued at the same time as the mining quota and was 57,500 tons in the first half of 2019.
China will issue the mining output quota for the second half of 2020 in the second quarter, said the notice, which also gave the first-half tungsten concentrate output quota as 52,500 tons. Tungsten is a metal used to harden steel and make cutting tools.
In the wake of the coronavirus outbreak that has killed more than 2,000 people in China, the country’s rare earths sector has been running at only 20 percent capacity, the Global Times, published by the official People’s Daily newspaper, reported last week.
However, David Merriman, a manager at consultancy Roskill, said disruptions to production are expected around the Lunar New Year holiday, which was extended this year in a bid to contain the spread of the virus. — Reuters
