A new heavy rare earth is discovered in China’s Bayan Obo region

Professor Li Guowu from the China University of Geosciences (Beijing) officially announced the discovery of the new heavy rare earth mineral on Thursday at the 2023 progress report meeting of the National Natural Science Foundation of China’s “Strategic Key Metal Supernormal Enrichment Metallogenic Dynamics” major research program integration project.

The mineral, dubbed bayanoboite-Y, is the world’s first discovered fluorocarbonate heavy rare earth mineral.

The discovery was the result of a joint project between the China University of Geosciences (Beijing), Baogang Group and the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the China’s Academy of Sciences, and was fully approved by the International Mineralogical Association New Mineral Naming and Classification Committee, with the approval number IMA 2023-084.

According to Baogang Group’s daily news, bayanoboite-Y is a new mineral with a completely new chemical composition and crystal structure, and contains several heavy rare earth elements, namely yttrium, dysprosium, gadolinium, erbium, and lutetium, among others.

The bayanoboite-Y discovery is a breakthrough for northern China

The discovery of bayanoboite-Y is a significant breakthrough in the occurrence of heavy rare earth minerals in the mining sector in China’s northern regions, with most existing heavy rare earths coming from ion-absorbed rare earth deposits in southern China, sources said.

It could enrich the heavy rare earth resources in the northern China, considering that mostly only light rare earth like neodymium-praseodymium, cerium and lanthanum are produced in the region currently, sources said.

“The new mineral has just been discovered, [so] I think there is still a long way to go before the new mineral can be processed into heavy rare earths including dysprosium, gadolinium and others, so it will have a limited short-term impact on the heavy rare earth market,” a consumer told Fastmarkets.

China’s dysprosium and gadolinium heavy rare earths markets remained under downward pressure due to weak downstream demand as a result of sluggish magnets sector and short-term bearish sentiment.

Fastmarkets’ weekly price assessment of dysprosium oxide 99.5%, fob China was $300-350 per kg on Thursday January 11, from $350-380 per kg on January 4.

Fastmarkets’ weekly price assessment of gadolinium oxide 99.99%-99.999% fob China was $38-41 per kg on January 11, from $40-43 per kg the preceding week.

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