Across the country, other rare earth mines closed because they could not compete with China. “China entered the market and in the '80s, flooded the market with low-priced rare earths elements and led to the going out of business of all the other mines globally,” Castilloux said.
As China's mining capacity expanded, rare earth producers in other countries began to shift their production to China to take advantage of the country's low labor costs and weak environmental regulations.
Currently, rare earths are being mined nowhere in Europe, with 98 percent of rare earths used in the EU in 2021 imported from China. China is responsible for around 61 percent of global mine production and thus mines by far the largest share of the elements traded on the world market.
For example, China doesn't mine any cobalt, but it refines 85 percent of the world's. It also controls 100 percent of the world's graphite production, a necessary metal for electric vehicles. In the complete rare earth metals production market, China controls about 90 percent.
However, China accounts for over 95 percent of the world's production of rare earths.
Australia has abundant reserves of critical minerals such as lithium, silicon and rare earths, which are key components of low-emissions technologies such as batteries, solar panels and electric vehicles which will help Australia and the world to lower emissions.
Concerningly, production of these rare earth minerals has remained concentrated. China has a dominant hold on the market—with 60% of global production and 85% of processing capacity.
China has over time acquired global domination of rare earths, even at one point, it produced 90% of the rare earths the world needs. Today, however, it has come down to 60% and the remaining is produced by other countries, including the Quad (Australia, India, Japan and United States).
Most of these reserves are located within China, estimated at some 44 million metric tons. After China, the major rare earth countries based on reserve volume are Vietnam, Brazil, and Russia. The United States also has significant reserves, estimated to amount to 2.3 million metric tons.
China. Unsurprisingly, China has the highest reserves of rare earth minerals at 44 million MT. The country was also the world's leading rare earths producer in 2022 by a long shot, putting out 210,000 MT.
A lot of these warnings have been incorrectly categorized under “EVs and rare earth metals.” Though neither lithium nor cobalt are rare earth metals, and rare earth metals aren't nearly as rare as precious metals like gold, platinum, and palladium, there are important issues surrounding the production of lithium-ion ...
China is reported to be preparing a ban on the export of technology needed to process and magnetise rare earth metals. Rare earths metals have uses in advanced technology such as high-performance magnets used in electric vehicles and wind turbine motors.
The rare earth deposits in the Delitzsch region of the east German state of Saxony were discovered during the period of the communist German Democratic Republic and include cerium, lanthanum, praseodymium, neodymium, europium and yttrium, Deutsche Rohstoff said.
Rare earths are mined by digging vast open pits in the ground, which can contaminate the environment and disrupt ecosystems. When poorly regulated, mining can produce wastewater ponds filled with acids, heavy metals and radioactive material that might leak into groundwater.
Historically, however, demand for rare earths has risen at a rate of about 10 percent per year. If demand continued to grow at this rate and no recycling of produced rare earths were undertaken, known world reserves likely would be exhausted sometime after the mid-21st century.
China is the world's largest producer of REEs, accounting for 61% of global annual mine production, estimated at 168,000 tonnes for 2021. The United States, Burma (Myanmar), Australia and Thailand accounted for the majority of the remaining mine production.
Lynas Rare Earth's Mount Weld mine has dominated Australian rare earths since production began in 2011.
Lynas Rare Earths (ASX: LYC)
Lynas is by far the largest Rare Earths company in Australia and is also the only globally significant producer outside of China. With a focus on integrated delivery, the ASX company's Mount Weld project is one of the highest-grade REE resources in the world.
The Lynas Mt Weld mine in Western Australia is acknowledged as one of the world's premier rare earths deposits.
Some 98% of rare earths used in the EU in 2021 were imported from China. Over one million tonnes are reported to have now been found in Sweden's far north. Although significant, that is a fraction of the world's 120-million-tonne reserves, according to a US estimate.
Russia was among the leading rare earth producing countries worldwide.
All of the world's heavy rare-earths (such as dysprosium) come from Chinese rare-earth sources such as the polymetallic Bayan Obo deposit.
In the eyes of the U.S. government and major manufacturers, it no longer made sense to acquire rare earths from a U.S. source subject to stringent environmental regulations. Instead, the hard business of extracting useful minerals was exported to other countries, where environmental damage was safely out of sight.
Like Middle Eastern countries, Beijing has leveraged this strategic resource in foreign policy. It temporarily barred exports of rare earths to Japan in 2010 amid tensions over the Senkaku Islands, which China claims and calls the Diaoyu, and is now considering a ban on exports of rare-earth magnet technology.
In terms of abundance in the Earth's crust, the rarest metals are: gold, platinum, osmium, iridium, palladium, ruthenium, rhodium, tellurium and rhenium. These metals are different from Rare Earth Elements, which aren't actually rare in terms of abundance, but are rarely found in concentrated ore deposits.