Beyond securing supply: Building rare earth resilience

Rare earths (RE) are integral to modern economies, with applications spanning electronics, electric vehicles, industrial motors, wind turbines, aerospace, and defence. Magnets enable many of these applications and represent more than 35% of RE demand by volume, but account for more than 80% of the market’s value.

While significant demand exists, the supply concentration is concerning. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), China accounts for approximately 60% of global mined production of magnet RE, while representing more than 90% of refined output.

Recent export controls and supply disruptions have exposed this vulnerability, with IEA estimating US$6.5 trillion of downstream production outside China could be at risk if restrictions are fully implemented.

This raises a fundamental question: What is truly rare about RE?

The real scarcity lies not in the elements themselves, but in access to a secure, reliable and diversified supply. As demand grows, policymakers and downstream consumers must look beyond securing additional volumes and address the concentration risk. Addressing this challenge necessitates a multi-dimensional response.

Evalueserve has identified a portfolio of complementary responses: Reduce, Recycle, Resecure, Regionalise, and Replace ranging from immediate improvements to long-term measures that diversify and strengthen supply chains. Reduce, centred on improving demand efficiency, is the most immediate pathway. Magnet thrifting, grain boundary diffusion and next-generation motor designs can lower heavy RE element intensity while maintaining required performance.

Five of the nine technologies assessed have reached technology readiness level (TRL) 9, indicating commercially proven solutions operating at scale with implementers including Bajaj Auto, Simple Energy, and Sona Comstar.

Recycle, centred on circular supply chains, is emerging as a strategic source of future RE supply. As hydrometallurgical recovery and magnet-to-magnet recycling technologies, such as hydrogen processing of magnet scrap, advance towards wider commercial deployment, the industry is increasingly viewing scrap and end-of-life magnets as secondary feedstocks.

Four of the six recycling solutions assessed have reached TRL 9, with commercial facilities emerging across Europe and North America.

Resecure, focused on diversifying access through alternative projects, processing capabilities, and public-private partnerships, is driving investment in separation, refining and metallisation outside established supply centres.

In the US, Phoenix Tailings is scaling RE-metal production and recovery from industrial wastewater, while Ucore is advancing commercial separation capacity. Aclara is also applying AI-enabled digital twins to accelerate heavy rare earth processing. In Australia, Arafura is advancing the integrated Nolans mine and processing project.

Regionalise, focused on developing new supply hubs, aims to strengthen domestic and regional supply security. Industrial policy, strategic investment, and private-sector collaborations are accelerating integrated REs capabilities.

Europe has commissioned a major permanent magnet facility in Estonia, India is supporting a domestic permanent magnet manufacturing ecosystem, and South Korea is planning a sintered magnet facility through a strategic partnership with the US.

Replace, centred on substitution technologies, offers a long-term pathway to reducing RE dependency. Ferrite-based motors, reluctance architectures, iron-nitride magnets, and software-defined motor platforms have significant potential in selected mobility and industrial applications.

Eight of the nine technologies remain at TRL 5 reflecting pre-commercial validation in relevant environments. However, ferrite-assisted synchronous reluctance motors (FaSynRM) have advanced to TRL 7, indicating demonstration at near-commercial scale.

Building resilience requires a portfolio approach

Evalueserve’s five pathways operate across different time horizons. Reduce offers the most immediate opportunity to lower material exposure, while Recycle and Resecure can progressively expand supply and processing optionality.

Regionalise requires sustained investment to establish integrated domestic and regional ecosystems, while Replace represents a longer-term route towards structurally reducing RE dependency. However, these pathways are not sequential. Organisations must pursue an overlapping portfolio aligned with their exposure, capabilities and strategic priorities.

Read the article online at: https://www.globalminingreview.com/mining/11092026/beyond-securing-supply-building-rare-earth-resilience/