Santoku Corporation and Alconix Corporation visit Asian Metal

In the morning of Aug 23, Masahiro Ohashi, GM of Purchasing & Logistics Dept of Santoku Corporation, Daisuke Onko, manager of Functional Materials Dept of Alconix Corporation, and Ye Yanxia from Alconix(Shanghai ) Corporation, communicated with Bruce Zhang, general manager of Asian Metal Minor Metal Department, Maggie Lee, analyst of rare earth and Peter Chen, analyst assistant, on the current rare earth market.

Santoku Corporation, one of the three rare earth giants in Japan, is an important end user of rare earth metals and downstream products, and involved in serious sectors such as magnetic materials and battery materials. It cooperated with Inner Mongolia High-tech Co., Ltd to build Baotou Precise Machine Battery Material Co., Ltd in 2001, with RMB56 million of registered capital and RMB1.28442 million of total assets. Japan Precise Machine invested RMB52.867 million, amounting 94.4% to the total share. In addition, the company jointly invested to establish Minmetals Precise Machine Ganzhou Rare Earth Material Co., Ltd in 2010 with Minmetals Corp, which is attached to Minmetals Non-ferrous Metals Co., Ltd. The new subsidiary focuses on deep processing of rare-earth permanent magnet alloy and put into production in December, 2011.

Alconix Corporation, focusing on electronic products and rare earth trade, meets the complicated Japanese consumer market relaying on stable suppliers and diversified service.

Maggie Lee, rare earth analyst from Asian Metal, introduced the current situation of Chinese rare earth market and explained that rare earth supply will tighten as the government will crack down illegal rare earth mining and processing. Hence, suppliers with stronger confidence are expected to lift their quotations in a short period. In addition, Chinese suppliers are reluctant to sell as there is rumor that the government will purchase rare earth for storage, offering supports to prices to go up. Ohashi gave an outline of Japanese rare earth market, which has been influenced by the higher prices in China. In addition, Mr Onko stated that he has no plan to purchase a large amount of rare earth resources from China at present as prices remain at a high level, and he intends to increase procurement volume from other areas except China if prices go up further in the future.