Realism on rare earths

Rare earths have made rare headlines ever since China effectively wielded its rare earth exports (particularly permanent magnets made with rare earths) as a weapon in its trade war with the United States.

- RANJAN MATHAI

China produces about 70 per cent of the global supply of rare earths and almost 90 per cent of rare earth magnets, and its dominance in this sector will not dissipate anytime soon.

Restrictions on rare earth metals and magnet exports have hit our automobile industry, particularly electric vehicles (EVs), hard.

They are also used in medical devices, smartphones, wind turbines, semiconductors, missiles and aircraft.

We should, therefore, be prepared for more disruptions, if the six-month truce between China and the US is not extended.

India now plans to incentivize large-scale magnet production and is hunting for rare earth suppliers worldwide.

Resources in African, Latin American, and Southeast Asian countries have been identified.

However, from locating geological reserves to mining, processing, and producing metals, the process is so complex that merely identifying geological resources is geopolitically insignificant.

In the 1990s, China declared rare earths "protected and strategic minerals".

Export quotas were introduced, and the export of rare earth concentrates was banned.

China's policy shifts reflected its success in developing a complete supply chain — from mining and crushing thousands of tonnes of rock, to beneficiation and processing of oxides through chemical cracking, and solvent extraction for separation of individual rare earth elements.