Some time ago, an Australian scholar published an article encouraging Vietnam and Australia to join forces to develop Vietnam's domestic rare earth resources. After the article
was published, it quickly aroused discussions among people around the world, and rare earths, a resource known as "industrial gold", also became a hot search topic.
Then as the world’s second largest country in rare earth resources, why does Vietnam guard the treasure mountain without digging?
1. What are rare earths?
Rare earths are also called " rare earth elements ". They are the unified name for a total of 17 chemical elements in the periodic table of elements such as scandium, yttrium and lanthanide elements.
It generally exists in the form of oxide , which is a kind of non-renewable resource. Rare earth itself is not rare. The difficulty is how to extract rare earth elements from oxides. The difficulty is technology. Because there are few countries that master the technology, it is called "rare earth".
rare earths can be roughly divided into light rare earths and heavy rare earths. Heavy rare earths are precious, while light rare earths are cheap (relative to heavy rare earths). There are many ways to classify light and heavy rare earths. The simplest classification is:
Light rare earths: lanthanum element, cerium element, samarium element, europium element, neodymium element, promethium element, etc.
Heavy rare earths: ytterbium element, lutetium element, scandium element, yttrium element, gadolinium element, terbium element, etc.
Rare earths are mostly found in oxide ores, so their distribution is mostly in " magma ", " pegmatite ", "hydrothermal deposits" and granite .
Raw ores containing rare earths mainly include the following categories.
Monazite
Monazite , also known as bastnaite , is yellowish-brown, brown or red, and mostly occurs in granite and granite veneerite. It is distributed in many countries, but because the mining of monazite is harmful to the environment, the scale of its mining has gradually been reduced.
bastnaite. It is yellow or reddish brown and mainly grows in mineral veins related to granite and granite syenite. The rare earth resource present inside it is cerium element. It is mainly used to make jet aircraft , missile , engines, and radiation-proof shells.
bastnaesite
In addition to these two common rare earth ores, there are many other ores containing rare earths. A common feature of these rare earth elements is their wide range of uses. If
is made into , the spheroidizing agent can be used on automobiles, tractors and other machinery, and when made into polishing powder , it can be used in the glass manufacturing industry.
is even used in agriculture. It can also increase the chlorophyll content of crops, enhance the photosynthesis of plants, and increase the yield of crops.
And rare earths have won the title of "industrial gold" due to their wide application. It is one of the most important industrial resources in the world.
The country with the largest rare earth resources in the world is my country, and the second largest is Vietnam.
2. Vietnam's rare earth mines
Vietnam is a socialist country located in Asia. It has a land area of about 330,000 square kilometers and a domestic population of more than 90 million. It is a typical country with "little land and many people", and its population density has reached 314 people per square kilometer.
Vietnam map
The main ethnic group in the country is " Kinh ", the main languages Vietnamese and English, and its capital is " Hanoi ". It is adjacent to Laos and Cambodia in the west, and is connected to my country's Guangdong and Yunnan in the north. It is a transportation artery connecting East Asia and Southeast Asia.
Although Vietnam is not large in area, it is a typical resource-based country. It is rich in water resources, plant resources and mineral resources.
In particular, mineral resources, in addition to "coal, iron, and aluminum" with large reserves, are undoubtedly the most famous "rare earth" resources. Its rare earth resource content has reached 22 million tons, making it the second largest country with rare earth resources in the world. The main distribution range of
is as follows.
The western region of Vietnam has the most rare earth resources, accounting for 60% of Vietnam's domestic rare earth resources, followed by the eastern coastal region , which accounts for approximately 38% of the country's rare earth resources.
As for the remaining 2%, they are widely distributed in various parts of Vietnam and do not form a large distribution area.
In addition to discovering the distribution of rare earth resources very early, Vietnam also mined rare earths very early. In 2011, when Nguyen Xuan Phuc was the Deputy Prime Minister of Vietnam, he ordered the start of rare earth mining to increase national income.
But until 2021, the number of rare earth mines mined in Vietnam has only reached about 800 tons, which is far less than Nguyen Xuan Phuc’s initial estimated tonnage, and the economic help to the entire country is also relatively small.
Logically speaking, Vietnam has been mining for a long time, and its mining amount should be large. But why is its mining amount so small? And what is the reason for the low mining of rare earths in Vietnam?
3. The difficulty of mining rare earths in Vietnam
The main reasons why it is difficult to mine rare earths in Vietnam are as follows.
. Its own industrial level is not enough.
As we said before, the reason why rare earths are called "rare" is not because of their small reserves, but because it is difficult to separate them from rare earth ores and the technology they possess is too superb.
Vietnam obviously does not have this technology, and Vietnam’s mining equipment is outdated, so Vietnam can only stare blankly in the face of its own huge domestic rare earth minerals.
Similarly, due to backward technology, rare earth ores mined in Vietnam are rarely processed because failure to separate rare earth elements in the ore not only results in the loss of raw materials but also pollutes the environment, so Vietnam generally sells raw materials.
The price of raw materials is naturally not as high as the price of finished products. This has led to Vietnam not being very enthusiastic about mining rare earth minerals. After all, after a year of hard work, all the money has gone into the pockets of other countries.
. Not worth much.
The rare earth mines in Vietnam are mainly light rare earths, not heavy rare earths. Light rare earths are not as good as heavy rare earths in terms of applications and effects, but the mining costs are not much different.
Especially in some high-precision technical applications, light rare earths are basically useless, and heavy rare earths must be used instead. This situation has led to the fact that although light rare earths are a type of rare earth resources, their value has been greatly reduced. No developed country is willing to help Vietnam mine rare earth mines.
Even Japan, which signed an agreement with Vietnam to jointly develop rare earths, has given up helping Vietnam mine rare earths due to various reasons.
. There is no sincere partner.
In fact, when rare earth minerals were first discovered in Vietnam, many developed countries approached Vietnam in an attempt to help Vietnam mine rare earth resources. But in the end they were abandoned by Vietnam because of their dishonesty.
For example, South Korea, after intense negotiations with Vietnam, had already planned to sign the cooperation agreement. However, South Korea temporarily reneged on the agreement and was unwilling to transfer its rare earth mining technology to Vietnam.
Fierce negotiations broke out between the two parties over this issue, but in the end they could not reach an agreement. Vietnam could only declare that the contract had failed.
It can be seen that these developed countries, which cooperate with Vietnam to develop rare earth minerals, only regard Vietnam as a disguised colony. They mainly want to obtain other countries’ resources and have no idea of mutual benefit and win-win.
Therefore, Vietnam has never reached cooperation with any foreign company or country, because it has only two choices before it, either bowing its head and mining rare earths together, or slowly exploring on its own.
Vietnam obviously chose the second one.
However, as the public opinion in Western countries "Let Vietnam replace China and become the world's largest exporter of rare earths" becomes stronger and stronger, and there are many rare earth mines in Vietnam, Western countries are likely to join Vietnam in mining rare earths, indirectly hindering the speed of my country's economic development.
But this is only a possibility. According to the current development momentum of Vietnam, it is very likely that it will continue to adhere to independent development and overcome the technical problems of rare earth mining.
However, neither possibility can be completed in a short time, and Vietnam will not endanger my country's status as a major exporter of rare earths.
