October 21, The Register – (International) Chinese giant halts rare earth shipments to hike prices. China's largest rare-earth producer, the state-owned Baotou Iron and Steel Group, is stopping rare earth shipments to the United States, Japan, and Europe, for a month starting October 19 in an attempt to drive up prices.
DailyTech reported the Baotou Group also plans to buy rare earth metals to raise demand and further increase prices. Rare earths are used in many high-tech components, such as disk drive magnets, lenses, and lasers. Lower prices for Chinese-mined rare earths caused China to gradually become the world's largest rare earth provider, controlling 95 to 97 percent of world production. The assumption behind the stoppage is China wants to increase production of goods that use rare earth metals, such as magnets. More money is made using rare earths in finished goods than in mining the minerals… (Read more)
Source: The Register via Homeland Security Daily Open Source Infrastructure Report, October 24 2011
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