Editor: Adam Zhang
China Northern Rare Earth has decreased its rare earth prices for December, while China Southern Rare Earth Group has maintained prices.
Last week, China Northern Rare Earth High-Tech Co., the biggest rare earth producer in the world, launched the new guiding December prices for light rare earth oxide products and rare earth metals.
Both the prices for lanthanum and cerium oxide remained the same for four months from September to December at 15,500 yuan ($2,342) per tonne. Compared with January, however, prices were 7.34% and 39.51% higher, respectively.
The price for praseodymium/neodymium oxide dropped from 388,000 yuan per tonne to 328,000 yuan per tonne; neodymium oxide went from 370,000 yuan per tonne to 328,000 yuan per tonne; praseodymium/neodymium oxide fell from 500,000 yuan per tonne to 425,000 yuan per tonne, and neodymium metal fell from 478,000 yuan per tonne to 425,000 yuan per tonne.
Over the course of the first few months of 2017 the company strategically increased prices before dropping them in the latter half of the year. Compared with the prices in January, the current prices of the products above are still higher 23%, 23%, 25% and 25%, respectively.
In the south, the biggest producer of rare earths China Southern Rare Earth Group also announced the guiding prices for middle and heavy rare earth oxide products, which all remained the same as on November 27.
The detailed price changes are shown in the table below:
Rare earths have many applications that drive demand. The biggest demand comes from permanent magnetic materials, polishing powder, catalyst, glass and ceramics, etc.