WESTERN nations could reach a reasonable degree of rare earths diversification away from China within three to five years, Benjamin Gallezot, France’s interministerial delegate for strategic minerals and metals supply, said on Wednesday.
Governments and manufacturers are hurrying to secure alternative supplies of metals critical to defence, technology and renewable energy. China produces up to 90% of some specialised rare earth magnets, and its export curbs on permanent magnets last year disrupted industries including carmaking.
Some investors and analysts doubt China’s grip can be broken, given the investment and technical expertise required.
Citing a speech by Gallezot at a mining conference in Sydney, Reuters said that the market was limited in size and progress had already been made. “You don’t need hundreds of rare earths mines around the world to cover the supply,” he said.
Projects led by Belgium’s Solvay and France’s Carester, along with others in Australia, the US, Japan, Brazil and India, were advancing quickly and, if accelerated, could deliver good diversification in that timeframe, he added. Magnet manufacturing capacity, however, could remain a bottleneck.
“You don’t need a decade to solve this problem,” he said.
In June, Group of Seven leaders agreed to coordinate more closely to cut reliance on China, said Reuters. They aim to reduce dependence on any single supplier outside the G7 and partner countries for rare earths and permanent magnets to below 60% by 2030, and ultimately to 50% as soon as possible, the newswire said.