Based on local iron ore from Paiyun-opo and coal from Shih-kuai-kou, and again with ‘all-round Soviet assistance’, Pao-t’ou has been made the largest steel town on the Mongolian Plateau [26]. The role it was about to play became clear when the construction of the Pao-t’ou—Lan-chou Railway was begun in 1954 and, like that of several other vital lines, was completed well ahead of schedule [27].]
1990, Lawrence J. Drew, Meng Qingrun, Sun Weijun, “The Bayan Obo iron-rare-earth-niobium deposits, Inner Mongolia, China”, in Lithos[2], volume 26, →DOI, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 43:
Bayan Obo is 146 km by road north of Baotou (population 1.5 million), where the ores are concentrated and smelted. The climate of Bayan Obo is extremely dry.[...]About 40,000 people live at Bayan Obo, most of whom work either directly in mining or in support activites.
2010, Cindy A. Hurst, China's Ace in the Hole: Rare Earth Elements[3], number 59, NDU Press, →OCLC, page 124:
In 1992, during his visit to Bayan Obo, China’s largest rare earth mine, Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping declared, “There is oil in the Middle East; there is rare earth in China.”
Wearing the worn and dusty clothes of an unskilled laborer, he looked like most of the inhabitants of Bayan Obo, a company town in Inner Mongolia that was itself worn and dusty.
2020 October 13, “China’s rare earth still needs an edge up in technology for high-end products”, in Global Times[5], archived from the original on 20 October 2020[6]:
The Bayan Obo Mining District in North China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region is often regarded as the biggest rare-earth mine in the world, with 17 different rare-earth elements, although its exact output is yet to be determined. However, when first discovered, the Bayan Obo mine was primarily treated as an iron mine, with the rare-earth elements considered to be less significant by-products. Although extraction technology advanced a great deal in the 1970s, the mine and its products are still largely undervalued due to the lack of high-end production technology. The Bayan Obo mine represents a tip of an iceberg of the rare earth industry in China.
2021 December 20, Min Zhang, Dominique Patton, “China to release rare earths mining rights in an 'orderly' way - Shanghai Securities News”, in Gerry Doyle, editor, Reuters[7], archived from the original on 20 December 2021, Commodities[8]:
Chang Guowu, an official from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, told an industry conference that China should strengthen exploration of the Bayan Obo mine in the Inner Mongolia region, as well as medium and heavy rare earths resources.
2021 October 23, Engen Tham, “Blast at chemical plant in China's Inner Mongolia kills 4 - Xinhua”, in William Mallard, editor, Reuters[9], Shanghai, archived from the original on 4 March 2022[10]:
The blast occurred at 11 p.m. (1500 GMT) on Friday at a workshop of a plant in Bayan Obo industrial park in Alxa League, in the southwest of the Chinese autonomous region, Xinhua said, citing local authorities.
