Hearing Miyagawa Masa's words, Nagatomo Eiji didn't have any relaxed appearance, he bowed slightly to Miyagawa Masa, and said: "Mr. Miyagawa, this time is really different, I think we not only can't use the inventory, but also need to take advantage of the low price to increase the reserve a lot." ”

"Inexpensive?" Miyagawa was stunned, "Nagatomo-kun, didn't you just say that the price has risen 3 times?" ”

"Yes, it's already tripled. However, according to my discussions with some market analysts, they believe that the price of heavy rare earths is likely to rise even more in the future, and it is not impossible to rise more than 10 times the current level. Nagatomo said.

"Why?" Miyagawa is a little confused. He is actually not a bureaucrat, and he has always been very concerned about the operation of the enterprise and the external environment, but the rare earth thing is changing too fast, and he can't keep up.

Nagatomo Eiji said: "This reason is complicated to say, but there is a simple fact that you can understand as soon as I say it. This time, it is China Daqin Group that is responsible for the remediation of heavy rare earths in southern China. The Chinese government has taken back the rights to operate rare earths from the three major foreign trading companies and fully granted them to Daqin Group. ”

"Daqin Group!" Technical Director Sadao Hirano almost jumped, "Do you mean that the chairman of the Daqin Group named Qin Hai is?" ”

"It is our procurement staff in Yunjiang Province in China who saw Qin Hai go to the mine with his soldiers to seal it up." Nagatomo said in a calm tone, believing that Sadao Hirano would be able to understand the mystery.

"Instigation!" Sadao Hirano gasped, he turned his head to Miyagawa Masa, and said, "Mr. Miyagawa, I now understand why Qin Hai exchanged the dysprosium terbium ferroalloy patent for our NdFeB patent. ”

At the beginning, Qin Hai sent samples of dysprosium and terbium ferroalloy to Sadao Hirano in the capital, and Sadao Hirano immediately rushed back to Japan and conducted a comprehensive physical and chemical test on the samples. The test results showed. First of all, the composition of this alloy does contain a large amount of dysprosium and terbium, and the content of neodymium, samarium and other elements is much lower than that of NdFeB and samarium cobalt alloys, that is, this is indeed a new type of rare earth magnetic material, not an upgraded version of traditional materials. Secondly. Dysprosium terbium ferroalloy is better than NdFeB in terms of residual magnetic induction strength, coercivity, maximum magnetic energy product, Curie temperature and other important indicators, and is obviously a very promising material.

As for the higher prices of dysprosium and terbium used in dysprosium and terbium ferroalloys than neodymium, this problem does not bother Sadao Hirano too much, because the cost of dysprosium and terbium in raw materials is affordable compared to the price of finished magnetic materials, of course, this is below the current price level of rare earths.

Based on this understanding, Chunshan Company quickly reached a patent exchange agreement with Daqin Group. Use the NdFeB patent in exchange for the other party's dysprosium terbium ferroalloy patent. Patent exchange means that both parties can produce each other's patents separately and can further develop them on the basis of each other's patents. In the view of Chunshan Company, the advent of dysprosium terbium ferroalloy will greatly reduce the market value of NdFeB, and it is very cost-effective to exchange a backward patent for a promising patent.

But Chunshan Company guessed the beginning, not the end. Just when the ink of the patent swap agreement is still dry. Daqin Group actually obtained the exclusive right to operate rare earths from the Chinese government, and on the grounds of rectification. Restrictions on the export of heavy rare earths, including dysprosium and terbium, have caused the price of heavy rare earths to continue to rise.

If this situation continues, although Chunshan Company has the patent of dysprosium and terbium ferroalloy, but it can't get dysprosium and terbium in its hands, what tricks can it play? Also, if the price of dysprosium and terbium really rises 10 times. Compared with NdFeB, dysprosium-terbium ferroalloy has no advantage in cost performance at all. Downstream manufacturers also have to consider the cost when choosing permanent magnet materials, who can afford such an expensive thing?

If it were replaced by another person and a company to remediate rare earths, Chunshan Company could believe that this was only a temporary action. It won't last. But when I learned that it was Daqin Company that did this, and Qin Hai, with the respect of a chairman, actually went into battle shirtless and went to seal the mine in person, if there was no conspiracy in this, no one would believe it. Sadao Hirano can gamble on his head, believing that the cause of Qinhai's remediation of heavy rare earths in southern China is dysprosium terbium ferroalloy.

"Qin Hai, this person, is too discredited!" Sadao Hirano said angrily, "He clearly dug a trap for us to jump in, and cheated our NdFeB patent with a promising dysprosium terbium ferroalloy patent." ”

"Dysprosium terbium ferroalloy is not without a future, it just has no future for us, but in the hands of Qin Hai, it has a great future. He had a monopoly on the production of dysprosium and terbium, which meant that he was the only one in the world who could provide an abundant and cheap material for dysprosium and terbium. Miyagawa said with a frown.

"In this way, our NdFeB materials will also be suppressed. He can reduce the price of dysprosium-terbium ferroalloy very low, leaving NdFeB without a market. And we can't get dysprosium and terbium, we can't compete with him at all. Saburo Okazaki, the sales director, analyzed with annoyance. The same technique has been used countless times by Chunshan Company to others, and no one expected that this time it would be calculated by others on their heads.

"Can we get dysprosium oxide and terbium oxide from Turkey?" Miyagawa asked Nagatomo Eiji.

Nagatomo Yongji shook his head helplessly and said: "It's impossible, the two yttrium phosphate mines in Turkey have been closed, and it will take at least a year to resume production, and relying only on orders for dysprosium oxide and terbium oxide cannot keep them profitable, so they will not be willing to resume fù." ”

"Damn the Chinese!" Saburo Okazaki scolded viciously.

Nagatomo Eiji looked at Masashi Miyagawa, and swallowed back the words when they came to his mouth. There are some things that you can't take regret medicine, and now it's just futile to say anything more.

In fact, the two yttrium phosphate mines in Turkey could have been closed without closure. When international rare earth prices plummeted, they called Chunshan and some other rare earth users, hoping that these companies could help raise rare earth prices so that they could stop their losses. Their reasoning at that time was that the world could not rely on China alone to provide rare earths, which was extremely detrimental to the stability of the rare earth market.

However, where would Chunshan Company, as a buyer, accept such a building? They have even resorted to tricks to induce the price of rare earths in China to fall further. As a result, the two Turkish yttrium phosphate mines suffered huge losses and had to declare bankruptcy in the end. Due to the low international rare earth prices, no one was willing to take over, and these two mines were abandoned.

The main products of these two mines in Turkey are rare earths yttrium, lanthanum and cerium, and they are also able to produce small amounts of dysprosium and terbium, but they are only stored as by-products.

There are a total of 17 rare earth elements, and these 17 elements will get a unified name because they belong to the same group on the periodic table and can be associated in mineralization. Most rare earth minerals are capable of producing a variety of rare earths, but the specific gravity of each rare earth is different. Light rare earth ore can also produce heavy rare earths, but its content is not as good as heavy rare earth ores, so it is impossible to specialize in the production of heavy rare earths, but can only be dominated by light rare earths, and heavy rare earths are stored as by-products.

Qin Hai's insidious thing is that he kept the price of light rare earths low, and ran out of rare earth mines in other countries with light rare earths as the main business. As a result, the supply of heavy rare earths in the market has been interrupted, and we can only rely on the unique ion adsorption heavy rare earth minerals in southern China to provide products.

Nowadays, due to Qin Hai's manipulation, the prices of heavy rare earths such as dysprosium oxide and terbium oxide have indeed risen, but it is still impossible to restore the production of rare earth mines in Turkey, Brazil, the United States and other places. A huge mine can't be reopened to produce some by-products, right? If these mines hadn't been closed and were still in production, it would have been fine. But it would be too costly to resume production at a mine that had already been closed. The most important thing is that if you spend a lot of money on your side to resume production, and the Chinese lower the price of heavy rare earths back, who do you talk to?

$50 or even $500 a kilogram of dysprosium oxide is a heavy burden for Chunshan, but for a mine dominated by light rare earths, it is completely unworth the small business. This is the embarrassment of Chunshan Company.

Miyagawa also thought about these problems, and he did not believe that the Chinese government could fully control rare earths, especially when China was in dire need of a large amount of foreign exchange, and it was impossible to restrict the export of rare earths. Unexpectedly, out of nowhere, such a figure as Qin Hai appeared, he has enough capital to integrate rare earth resources, and at the same time, he has core technology to realize the deep processing of rare earths. In this way, he can turn the export of rare earth raw materials into the export of rare earth deep-processed products, and relieve the pressure of export to earn foreign exchange.

In the face of such an opponent, Chunshan Company can no longer have a fluke mentality, if it wants to maintain its own inventory in the field of dysprosium terbium ferroalloy, then it must be like Nagatomo Yongji said, while the price has not risen to the top, quickly increase rather than reduce the reserves, and in the future, we have to count on this inventory to compete with Qin Hai for the market of permanent magnet materials.

"Hirano-kun, how far has your research on dysprosium and terbium ferroalloys progressed? How much dysprosium oxide and terbium oxide do you estimate the company will consume in the next few years? Miyagawa asked Sadao Hirano.

"On the basis of Chinese patents, we have developed three new dysprosium-terbium ferroalloy technologies, all of which far exceed NdFeB, and are fully promising to be applied to disk drives, automotive motors, etc." According to our calculations, in the next three years, our company will need at least 600 tons of dysprosium oxide and 100 tons of terbium oxide to produce dysprosium terbium ferroalloy. Sadao Hirano replied earnestly. (To be continued......)