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Cultivating New Suppliers to Ensure a Stable Supply of Rare Earths

While rare earths are essential to a range of leading-edge industrial fields, in recent years overdependence on China for these resources has become increasingly problematic. To diversify sources of supply and thereby ensure a steady supply to consumers, Toyota Tsusho has acquired rare earth mining rights in various parts of the world, including India, Vietnam and Indonesia, and is constructing smelting plants.

[India] Producing Rare Earths from the Waste Generated During Uranium and Thorium Extraction

We are moving forward with plans to build a factory in India to produce rare earths. Indian Rare Earth Ltd., a company affiliated with India's Department of Atomic Energy, is currently mining sand deposits that include monazite. Extracting the nuclear fuel (uranium and thorium) from this monazite ore leaves as a byproduct a salificated rare earth mixture.

The plant that we are building makes use of this previously unexploited mixture as a raw material to produce such rare earths as neodymium, lanthanum and cerium. Construction began in July 2011 and the plant will be operated by our Indian subsidiary, TREI^*. We are moving ahead with preparations to commence production in April 2012. Assuming that the project progresses according to plan, we expect the plant to begin producing between 3,000 and 4,000 tons of rare earths per year in 2012.

• * TREI: Toyotsu Rare Earths India Private Ltd.

[Vietnam] Building a Supply Chain Spanning Rare Earth Mine Development to Production Plants

An agreement on joint development of rare earth mines was reached at a Japan–Vietnam bilateral summit meeting in October 2010. In line with this accord, Toyota Tsusho made a full-fledged commitment to a rare earths project that it had been pursuing in Vietnam. In 2011, we set up a joint venture with a local company to develop a rare earth mine in Dong Pao, located northwest of Hanoi, and we expect to acquire mining rights in late 2011.

Following this acquisition, in 2012 we will begin preparations for a refining plant, where we are planning to produce such minerals as cerium, lanthanum and neodymium in the summer of 2012. Success in this project should assure us a stable annual supply of 7,000 tons of rare earths, meeting one-fourth of Japanese demand.

[Indonesia] Recovering Rare Earths from the Slag Emitted during Tin Refining

Toyota Tsusho is developing rare earths on the western Indonesian island of Bangka, a region that leads the world in the production of tin. In the past, the slag emitted during the process of refining tin ore was handled as industrial waste, but this slag contains raw earths.

We plan to build a specialized plant in the area employing state-of-the-art refining technology to recover rare earths from this waste slag. We expect to extract neodymium and dysprosium, which are core elements used in hybrid and electric vehicles.

Rare Earth Value Chain

We are working to ensure stable supplies of new rare earth resources by developing mines and new raw materials throughout the world's regions, and by moving forward with the construction of new smelting plants. Rare earths are used in a wide variety of manufacturing fields, and feature in hybrid vehicles, mobile phones and a host of other products used in our everyday lives.

Types of Rare Earths that Toyota Tsusho Handles, and Their Applications

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