Australia May Be the Saving Grace for the Rare Earth Metals Market

When Colorado-based Molycorp Inc. filed for bankruptcy in 2015, the U.S. lost its sole remaining miner and producer of rare earth elements (REEs)—those inconspicuous metals with unpronounceable names like praseodymium, yttrium and gadolinium.

The company’s key project, the open-pit Mountain Pass mine in California, was once the world’s top source for rare earths, which are used today in a growing number of important high-tech applications, from lasers to wind turbines to missile guidance systems.

Uses and properties od rare earth elements
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Multinationals as varied as Boeing, Honeywell, Sherwin-Williams, Bayer, ExxonMobil, Stanley Black & Decker and Qualcomm all have financial interests in the availability of REEs. The iPhone in your pocket would be inoperable without 16 of the 17 rare earth metals. Each F-35 fighter jet is estimated to contain about half a ton of the elements. To improve motor efficiency, Tesla’s 2019 Model S and Model X are installed with a permanent magnet motor that uses rare earth neodymium-iron-boron magnets.

Lacking its own domestic supplier, the U.S. has for years been dependent on China, the world’s biggest producer by a huge margin. The Asian country has enjoyed a near-monopoly in the rare earth market, representing between 80 percent and 90 percent of global output.

China still dominates the global rare earth market
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Cracks in that market dominance are beginning to appear, however, as Australia has recently emerged as a competitive supplier. From 2013 to 2018, Australia’s annual output of REEs exploded more than 1,600 percent, from around 1,000 tonnes to 19,000 tonnes, according to consultancy firm Roskill.

The largest Australian company involved in the mining and processing of REEs is Lynas Corp., which trades on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX). Other rare earth mining companies trade there as well, including Northern Minerals Ltd., Arafura Resources Ltd. and Alkane Resources Ltd., but Lynas is the biggest player by far, not just in Australia but in the entire world outside of China. It controls the prolific Mt. Weld deposit in Western Australia, which is responsible for about 8 percent of world output. Once ore is extracted, the company processes it in Malaysia at the Lynas Advanced Materials Plant.

I’ll have more to say on Lynas in a moment.