The Dong Pao rare earth mine has been licensed since 2014 but is not yet suitable for exploitation. Lavreco is promoting the search for strategic partners to invest in the project.
The largest rare earth mine Dong Pao, Viet Nam
The rare earth is a reserve extremely important for many sectors, especially for the production of electronic equipment, batteries, magnets, led light. Vietnam owns rare land resources with reserves of about 22 million tons, ranking second in the world, according to the US Geological Servey.
The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment said that despite great potential, the level of exploitation in Vietnam is still very limited and small. With current technology, Vietnam can only export raw rare earth, but has not separated the elements in rare earth or processed it to obtain refined rare earth.
Currently, the rare earth mine with the largest reserves in the country is Dong Pao mine, in Ban Hon commune, Tam Duong district, Lai Chau province. Dong Pao mine is an adjacent mountain range of more than 132 hectares, with a total dry geological reserve of over 11.3 million tons.
Dong Pao mine is managed and exploited by Lai Chau Rare Earth Joint Stock Company – Vimico. The enterprise was established in 2008 with the participation of 6 shareholders, charter capital of 350 billion VND. In particular, Vietnam Coal and Mineral Industries Group (Vinacomin) holds the dominant power with an ownership rate of 55%.
Dong Pao rare earth mine has been licensed but is not eligible for exploitation due to difficulties in the market, processing technology, financial arrangements.
Specifically, Lavreco has implemented an investment project to build a project to exploit and process rare earth ores at Dong Pao mine with 3 component projects: an investment project to build and exploit rare earth ores at Dong Pao mine. Pao, the mine was granted an investment certificate by the People's Committee of Lai Chau province in 2013 and licensed by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment to exploit in 2014; Dong Pao Lai Chau rare earth hydrometallurgy plant project and Dong Pao Hai Phong rare earth extraction plant project were appraised by the Ministry of Industry and Trade in 2012. The total investment of the project is about 4,159 billion VND.
In 2012, Lavreco and Mineral Corporation - TKV signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in rare earth mining and processing with Dong Pao Rare Earth Development Company, Japan. However, the Japanese partner then stopped cooperating, resulting in the company not being able to obtain investment capital and rare earth processing technology from Japan. Up to now, the company has not found any qualified partner according to the requirements of state agencies, so the project has not been implemented on schedule.
Source: cafef.vn