3.22.2.1 Production

      China's REE industry commenced and has developed after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. Now a complete REE industrial system has been formed, comprising all links of production: geological exploration, ore mining, dressing and smelting, processing and utilization. A large number of large-, medium- and small-scale mines as well as plants for ore smelting, extracting and material processing have been established, which produce great varieties of REE products. A batch of unique ore-smelting technologies have been developed and some techniques and economic indexes have attained the advanced world level. China is now a leading country in the world in terms of REE reserves, and output and export of REE products.

      Official investigation indicates that in China the REE hydrometallurgical capacity was close to 90,000 tons and the processing capacity of REE concentrates was over 80,000 tons in 1996. According to recent statistics issued by the REE office under the State Planning Commission, the output of REE commodities was 53,250 tons in 1997 (35,000 tons of REE concentrates in Baotou, Inner Mongolia, 11,000 tons of REE in Mianning, Sichuan, and 1,200 tons of REE in Weishan, Shandong, 50 tons of monazite and 6,000 tons of ion adsorbed REE). 46,500 tons of REE products were produced, increased by 2.6% compared to 1996.

3.22.2.2 Distribution of Production

      As for the REE production of China, two major systems, namely the southern and northern production systems, were established based on the distribution of REE resources and the economic conditions of different areas in the country. In northern China, a LREE industrial system was set up with the Baotou Iron and Steel and REE Company and the Gansu REE Company as key enterprises. It mainly undertakes the exploitation of REE resources of the Bayan Obo ore district. This production system comprises the enterprises affiliated with the metallurgical, nonferrous and nuclear industrial sectors in addition some local enterprises and has created world-class REE mines and processing systems with a total production capacity of 40,000 tons (referring to REE oxides, hereinafter). In southern China, a group of mines of middle and heavy REE were setup, mainly in Jiangxi, Guangdong and Hunan Provinces. A number of key factories and enterprises were built, such as the Shanghai Yaolong Nonferrous metallic Co. Ltd., Guangzhou Zhujiang Smelter, and Longnan REE Company, which have formed a production system of middle and heavy REE based on ion adsorbed REE resources. Its total production capacity of REE products is 10,000 tons. This is the largest REE production system of middle and heavy REE in the world.

      Practice has proved that the present REE production distribution of China is comparatively rational, which takes into account the distribution feature of REE resources, thus beneficial to giving play to different advantages of the southern and northern systems, focusing on HREE and LREE respectively. To this end, a number of research projects were formulated during the sixth and seventh Five-Year Plan periods (1981~1990) and these projects were related to the superlarge Baotou REE deposit, the dressing technique of ore in which REE are associated with Fe and Nb and the extraction and utilization of ion adsorbed middle and heavy REE occurring specially in southern China. The mass of geologists engaged in the research made great efforts to solve numerous technical problems, so that a set of dressing and smelting technologies were developed, which are very efficient in the multipurpose utilization and comprehensive recovery of REE resources tapped both in the southern and northern systems. At present, there are totally more than 200 REE production enterprises, including over 30 REE mines, over 80 smelters, more than 20 factories of REE alloys, more than 100 factories of REE magnetic materials, over 30 REE fluorescent materials and more than 10 factories of REE fertilizes. Among them, there are 33 State-owned enterprises (12 ore-dressing plants and 21 smelters) and about 170 local enterprises.