CHINA Minmetals Rare Earth, one of the country’s largest rare earth miners, has begun construction of a new mining project in the central province of Hunan, the company said Tuesday.

The project in Jianghua County is expected to begin production in February 2020, with estimated output of 1,800 tons a year of rare earth oxides, China Minmetals said.

The deposit has ore reserves of 104,300 tons, according to the company website.

Prices of rare earths, a group of 17 elements used in a wide-range of products from lasers and military equipment to consumer electronics, have hit multi-year highs following a flurry of reports that China could use them in its trade war against the United States.

Rare earth exports by China, which supplied 80 percent of imports by the United States from 2014 to 2017, fell 16 percent in May from a month earlier.

China is home to at least 85 percent of the world’s capacity to process rare earth ores into material that manufacturers can use, according to research firm Adamas Intelligence.

China Minmetals Rare Earth, a subsidiary of State-backed China Minmetals Corp., produced 4,101 tons of rare earth oxides in 2018, up 19 percent from a year earlier, according to a company filing to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.

China consolidated its rare earth mining and separation companies into six licensed groups in 2016. (SD-Agencies)