August 6, 2025 • 26 mins
China has a near monopoly on rare earths due to decades of government foresight. The country controls 70% of mining and nearly all processing of the vital minerals used in cars, data centers and defense equipment. It's one of the biggest cards China can play in trade talks with the US.
When China restricted its flow of rare earths to the US earlier this year, companies shuddered. Ford had to stop production at some plants. How did China come to dominate this industry? Can companies in the US, Japan, South Korea and elsewhere replicate China's success? And what are the roadblocks?
Curtis Moore, senior vice president at uranium-miner Energy Fuels, joins John and Katia to break down the global rare earth industry.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
China has a near monopoly on rare earths, accounting for
close to sixty percent of global mining and over ninety
percent of processing. And importantly, China is using its dominant
position as a bargaining chip in their negotiations with the US.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
When President Trump announced Liberation Day tariffs, China immediately retaliated
by restricting supply of rare earths, causing companies like Forward
to halt production. The US has also issued several directives
around rare earths, including an investigation that could yield more tariffs.
So what are these minerals, why are they so important
(00:38):
to global trade and production? And how did China come
to dominate this space?
Speaker 1 (00:43):
You're listening to Age Eccentric from Bloomberg Intelligence.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
I'm John Lee in Hong Kong, and I'm Katydmitrieva, also
in Hong Kong.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Here to discuss everything related to rare earths is Curtis More,
senior vice president at Energy Fuels, a major uranium miner
that also produces rare earths. He's dialing in from Denver. Curtis,
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Hi, it's great to be here. Curtis, give us.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
A one oh one. What exactly are rare earths.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Yeah, I'm happy to do so. So, rare earths are
essentially the second to last line on the periodic table.
It is a series of metallic elements. It starts with
lanthanum and goes through syrium and praiseodemium and neodymium, also
including a yettrium and scandium. And they have just a
wide variety of important uses in a host of clean
(01:33):
energy technologies, other advanced technologies, military and defense technologies, and
other applications like that.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
So what are they if you can just describe because
my understanding is, you know, rare earths are critical minerals,
but you know, rare earths are a bit of a
misnomer because they're actually pretty widely available on Earth. It's
just getting to them and getting to them in large amounts.
Is that right?
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Yeah, that is correct. There's a lot of i'd say
confusion between rare earths and critical minerals, and some people
tend to use those two terms interchangeably. That is not
totally accurate. One way to think about it is that
rare earths are critical minerals, but critical minerals are not
necessarily rare earths, And it's also correct that it's a
misnomer that rare earths are rare in the Earth's crest.
(02:21):
They are actually quite common. But finding rare earths and
economically viable and accessible deposits is somewhat rare. And then
to actually extract those and process those minerals into usable
materials and products, that's extremely rare. And that is where
China absolutely dominates the global market right now.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
And how did China come to dominate this space, because
from understanding, you know, the US used to mine and
refine where Earth's maybe say twenty years ago. So tell
us the roadmap of how China came to be so dominant.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Well, again, I'm only speculating here, but I give China
and Chinese companies a lot lot of credit. I think
that they saw the future about thirty years ago. They
saw an area where the United States was kind of
stepping back from global markets, and I think a lot
of Chinese companies realized that there was an opportunity there,
a market opportunity based upon where certain technologies were headed
(03:17):
at that time, and so there was a vacuum that
got opened up by the United States, and Chinese companies
smartly stepped in to fill that vacuum. And so over
the last twenty or thirty plus years, Chinese companies have
expended a lot of resources and a lot of there's
been a lot of training, a lot of technology development
in rare mining and processing, and as a result, Chinese
(03:40):
companies have really taken a dominant position. I mean, I'll
tell you the mining of rare this is kind of
the easy part. You know, digging rocks up out of
the ground or extracting the minerals out of the ground,
that's kind of the easy part. But turning those minerals
into you know, say separated rare earth oxides or rare
earth metals or alloys or magnets or other advanced materials,
that's really the hard part. And that takes a lot
of technical know how and a lot of capital to
(04:02):
build the facilities that are needed to perform those functions.
And China has just really made it a priority and
as a result, they hold a dominant position today.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Yeah, it really took decades, right, Like you had that
component in particular, So it's the digging, it's finding it,
and then it's refining it as well. And they also
happened to invest or have ownership over some of the
world's biggest rare earth deposits. So like in Inner Mongolia
there's the world's largest rare earth deposit, and it's an
(04:31):
autonomous region of China, and so they've got some control
over it. Like how much of this is just luck
and you happen to have it in your own backyard?
And how much of it is actually investment in government
sponsorship and going out and finding perhaps friend showing for example.
And I guess what I'm getting at is can other
countries like the US replicate this.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
I would not say it was luck. I think it
was foresight. Honestly. I think they saw this opening in
the global markets, and they saw where a lot of
advanced technologies were going, and so they made a concerted
effort to go secure the resources to build out the
refining and processing capacity, to make the investments that are
necessary to create that capacity. Education, you know, in training
(05:13):
and workforce, you know, investments just across the spectrum. You know, again,
rares are not that rare. You know, sure there's better
deposits in certain areas, and yes, if you're blessed with
a good deposit in your nation, that's I guess maybe
that's a small amount of luck, but it takes more
than luck to achieve a dominant position in this industry.
I mean, I would say that other countries like the
United States and in Europe, Japan, South Korea, I think
(05:36):
there is a roadmap there for those countries to follow,
but it's also not going to happen overnight. There's been
a great deal of investment. This has been a multi
decade effort by China and Chinese companies, and I don't
think other countries are probably going to solve that or
achieve that level of success overnight.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
So how many years are we talking about codis, you know?
Speaker 3 (05:55):
I mean, I've often heard it said that the United
States kind of globalized a lot of our supply chains
over twenty or thirty years, and it may take twenty
thirty years to completely deglobalize it on things like critical minerals. Now,
I'm not sure I totally buy into that timeframe, but
it is a matter of years. And there's been a
number of challenges that Western rare earth companies have encountered.
(06:16):
There have been efforts to try to rebuild these supply
chains over the last several years that generally have not
been particularly successful. Now we are seeing I think the
level of support from the US government that is likely required.
There was the deal done with MP Materials a couple
of weeks ago. That's kind of the level of support
that it's going to take to try to catch up.
I mean, one of the big advantages that Chinese companies
(06:38):
have over US companies is that they already have their infrastructure.
They already have their refining and processing facilities and manufacturing
facilities already built. They've already got the vertical integration figured out,
and really that's just a way to lower costs and
to become more efficient, and so to be able to
replicate that in the West is it's going to take
a little bit of time and quite a bit of investment.
Now there are some again, some bright spot there, I
(07:00):
mean MP Materials, they're on a great path. I think
energy fuels were on a good path. But it's going
to take a long time to be able to match
what China has put together, just in.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Terms of the infrastructure. I mean, we've seen the Trump
administration take a number of steps the Section two thirty
two investigation that might add more tariffs on critical minerals
or rare earths. We've also seen this push starting in
March of this year to agencies to seek the development
of this in the US. What else does the US
(07:33):
government kind of need to do to start this process
of you know, what's the roadmap? What do they need
to do for companies like you and other peers to
sort of start developing this within the US.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
Well, I mean, again, I think the MP Materials deal
that was announced a couple of weeks ago is a
pretty good roadmap. Some of the aspects of that deal
were things like price floors to essentially guarantee that companies,
especially in their early stage, are able to preduce use
these advanced rare earth materials. And again, this isn't just
apply to rare it's I think this applies to all
(08:05):
critical minerals things, you know, other things like you know,
antimony and germanium and gallium and the whole spectrum there.
That's one of the challenges that Western companies have in
trying to compete with much more mature industries like they
have in China. You know, typically when you're just starting
out in an industry like this, your costs are just
simply higher. You haven't achieved those efficiencies and that those
(08:26):
competencies that are required, so you know some of the
price floors. I think that's a good way to approach it.
You know, low interest loans, grants, you know, government funding
to build out facilities, you know, government funding to help
train workforce and to build up an industry. And it'll
probably take you know, at least five or ten years
to build up a mature industry that can compete with
Chinese companies. I will say that those types of investments
(08:48):
and those types of efforts in the West I think
have not really occurred in the past. But it sounds
like Western governments are waking up to what is the
magnitude of what is really required here.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
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(09:21):
If you like what you're hear, don't forget to subscribe
and share. Curtis just for the benefit of the listener.
The US Department of Defense invested in MP Materials. I
think the figure was like four hundred million dollars, and
this is the deal that we're referring to. It became
the largest sharehold of MP Materials, and let's be frank,
it had an amazing impact on the share price of
(09:44):
this company. I think it almost tripled, and your company
as well. Your stock price really ramped up as well.
Is this what it takes? Like, does it really need
the government support to build up the US rare eers infrastructure?
Speaker 3 (09:57):
You know, I'm not sure it takes actual government ownership.
I mean, I think it was just more the injection
of capital into MP Materials. And I think maybe the
US government or the DoD was, you know, looking to
maybe get a return on taxpayer money. If you're going
to invest, you know, hundreds of millions or billions of
dollars into a company rather than just give a private
company money, well let's see if the taxpayer can get
(10:19):
a return on it. I mean, again, I can't get
into their heads. I don't know what their thought was there,
but that seems to make sense to me. I have
my concerns about government ownership or becoming a major shareholder
in a company. I'd prefer that to not be the case.
But again, you know, if that's the way to get
the funding that the government has available, you know we
as a company would certainly be open to it.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
So MP Materials has the only active rare earth mind
in the US. It's really tough to build, as you said,
build out the infrastructure in the US for this. At
the same time, this directive from Trump in March, this
executive order to produce more domestically, I mean, is it
possible to have more minds this of MP.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
Well, first you need deposits, right, I will say, and
this may be somewhat controversial statement, but the US has
okay rare earth deposits, but not not exceptional rare earth deposits.
And there's a variety of efforts to try to build
out these minds in the United States. But the truth
is is that I think we can take a page
(11:23):
out of China's book, and you know, you don't have
to produce everything in country. It's okay if you're importing
minerals or raw materials from other countries, just like China does. Right,
And you're right, MP Materials has I'd say kind of
the main rare earth mind in the United States. You know,
our company, we're actually receiving rare earth ores from Florida
(11:43):
and Georgia. In the United States, we're actually approaching rare
earth production from a quite different standpoint. We're looking to
actually obtain rare earth minerals from other minds that these
are rare earth minerals that are produced as a byproduct
of other mining, primarily type tenium mines actually, which is
a different way to look at it. And actually, you know,
(12:04):
China does this. Chinese companies do this. We estimate that
probably ten or fifteen percent of China's rare earth industry
is supported in the same manner that we're going about this,
where we're getting these monozite and xenotime minerals from heavy
mineral sand operations. I mean, that's kind of one of
the dirty little secrets I guess I could say about
rare earths is that not only are they not rare,
(12:25):
but they're actually already mined all over the world as
a byproduct of other mining. And honestly, rare earth minds
that are just single commodity rare earth mines where all
they do is rare earth honestly at a bit of
a competitive disadvantage versus other minds that maybe produce a
number of commodities from the same deposit.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
And you're getting these U said, from Florida and Georgia.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
Yep. Yeah, So these are essentially titanium and zircon mines
is what they are. Now. Most titanium and zircon, i'd say,
are kind of boring industrial materials. I mean, I don't
want to minimize them. And of course there are high
tech and very critical uses for titanium and zircon and
zirconium and things. But you know, most titanium goes into
paint and pigment and you know, mix your your paper
white and things like that. Most zircon goes into just
(13:10):
you know, ceramics, you know, like tile in your kitchen
and things like that. And there's a, you know, a
robust global market for titanium and zircon and those types
of minerals. But right alongside those titanium and zircon minerals
are other minerals that are full of rare earths, primarily
monozite and xenotyme, and those are some wonderful rare earth
minerals because they have really good concentrations of the light,
(13:33):
the middle and the heavy rare earths. And you hear
a lot about those categories in the rare earth industry.
And that might be another rare earth one on one
lesson here, But whenever you hear about light rare earths,
people are primarily talking about neodymium and praiseodemium or ndpr.
Those are the light rare earths that are used in magnets,
and these magnets are used primarily in electric vehicles, in
(13:56):
hybrid electric vehicles, advanced robotics, certain wind energy technologies. Of course,
military and defense. You'll also hear about heavy rare earths.
There's two main magnet heavy rare earths, that's urbium and dysprosium.
That's TB and d Y and again you create these
very powerful magnets, neodymium magnets. They are used in those applications.
(14:18):
There are other heavy rare earths, you know, things like
lutetium and yetrium and others that have important military and
defense technologies, and those are the ones that are on
the export control list that the Chinese government put in place.
That's urbium and dysprosium and yttrium, samarium, gadolinium. Those are
kind of the middle rares, sometimes categorized as heavies, but yeah,
(14:39):
the main uses are magnets and some other applications and Curtis.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
When China restricted some of the supply of the rare earths,
we saw companies hope production and it was notable that
Ford had to cut back production in one of their plants.
How much supply does the US have right now and
how quickly will it run out if China were to say,
you know, tun off the taps.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
You know that. I don't know. I know it's not infinite.
As an American, I know I hope that the US
military has enough. I presume they have enough foresight to
have stockpiles to get them through. But in terms of
like a Ford or a General Motors, or even a
Kia or Hyundai or Mercedes, yeah, I don't know. But again,
the fact that Ford had to shut down a plant,
(15:23):
that's very telling. I do know that there is a
lot of effort out there by these companies to try
to procure rare earth materials that don't come from China,
And honestly, the sources are very limited. I mean you
have you know, MP Materials, which is producing DPR oxide
that's the light magnet rare earth oxide. And I think
they're up to two thousand or twenty five hundred metric
(15:45):
tons of NDPR oxide per year. And just for context,
a typical electric vehicle needs an additional say half a
kilogram to kilogram of NDPR oxide per vehicle, you know,
so if you're producing say two thousand tons of dpr ocid,
that's enough for say two to four million evs per
year or hybrid evs per year, just kind of for context.
(16:05):
And so Linus is a company out of Australia that
is the largest non Chinese producer of rare earth oxides
in the world. They mine in Western Australia. They do
some early processing also in Western Australian. I think they
do the separations in Malaysia where they also produce NDPR oxide.
I saw that they recently started production of d y
oxide or disprosium oxide, which was a big achievement for them.
(16:28):
We're going to be producing a pilot scale d Y
oxide here in the next few weeks. That's a big deal.
It's a big accomplishment because China really has dominance in
the heavy rare earth market, which is what disprosium oxide is.
It's one of the heavies. But besides that, you get
down to processing. You know, you have you know, companies
like Neo Performance Materials. They're a Canadian company that has
a processing plant in Estonia, and some other plants in Thailand,
(16:52):
I believe, and ownership and some Chinese plants. There's Japanese
and Korean companies that do a rare earth metallization and
aling and magnet making for their customers. But it's still
a bit of a nation industry at this stage. When
you get down to the especially the oxides and the
rare earth metals and alloys and magnets and that sort
of thing. Again, that's really where China has the dominance.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Yeah, Curtis, you make several good points. I mean you're
really underscoring some of the issues here, right because critical
minerals rare earth's quite dispersed. I mean, yes, China has
the monopoly, but you know there's Canada, there's Greenland, Australia,
other places that are producing this stuff refining it. Southeast
Asian countries that are also there's mines there the DRC
(17:33):
of course with mines. Now, by twenty thirty, the US
is projected to hold less than two percent of global
critical minerals, and that compares to thirty one percent for China.
So it's not clear that the US at this point
can really ramp up their own production of this stuff.
(17:53):
So how important is it that the US really tries
to as opposed to maybe like ramping up production at home,
also does things like friend shoring or forming those kinds
of trade deals to try to get the rare earths
from friendly countries, because that seems like important, but it's
kind of the opposite is being done now with tariffs.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Yeah, no, I one hundred percent agree with you. Look,
you know, the United States is blessed with a lot
of minerals, but we don't have the best deposits of
every critical mineral in the world. And frankly, some of
the efforts to say produce like rare earth's out of
say like coal waste or something I think is frankly stupid.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Wait why is it stupid?
Speaker 3 (18:35):
It would be insanely expensive. You know, So you run coal,
you know, you know, you burn coal on a plant,
and yeah, you have coal ash and coal waste, and yeah,
sure there's rare earths in it, but it's wildly expensive
to try to extract those trace concentrations of rare earths
out of things like coal waste. I think again, you know,
rares aren't rare, but to be able to find a
deposit that's that's even remotely competitive globally. That's what's hard.
(18:58):
I mean, look, if you have unlimited money, sure you
can produce rares out of probably seawater, but that doesn't
make any sense. And again, at the end of the
day as well, these end users, whether you're a Ford
or a GM or a Mercedes or a Hyundai or whoever,
I think they're willing to maybe pay a little bit
more for non Chinese wearers, but you know they can't
pay three, four, five, ten times more for their wearers
(19:19):
than they could otherwise get from China. I mean, they
have their own competitive pressure points, right. You know, they
can't start paying more for all these components in their vehicles,
they will rapidly become uneconomic. So again, I think it's
very important for the United States to mine our good deposits.
We do have good deposits of rares in certain critical minerals.
But we also have to recognize that we don't have
everything here, and yes, we do need to do more
(19:41):
friend shoring and mining and processing, you know, with our allies,
not using our allies, but partnering with our allies.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
And you know, President Trump has been really focused on
where It may be a reason why he's shown so
much interest in Greenland because he doesn't have enough of
reserves in rares.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
Well, look, earths are not rare. I'm sure Greenland has
rare earths, but I don't think Greenland is going to
be producing rare earths anytime soon. Now, maybe in twenty
thirty forty years. That could be you know, a place
that's a source of a good source of rares. But
there's better, i'd say, more accessible deposits. You know, Greenland
has very little infrastructure. It'd be pretty expensive to produce
rares up there right right now.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Anyway, you mentioned the infrastructure, the high costs, and one
other thing that we haven't really talked about is the
environmental impact and the quality of jobs. It just strikes
me that you know, there's been a shift in manufacturing,
for example, to hire higher skilled manufacturing. A lot of
it has become less dirty, more clean, But mining, especially
mining of rare earths and critical minerals, is not one
(20:41):
of those. I mean, the reality is you have to
dig for them. I wonder if it makes sense for
the US to prioritize opening more of these kinds of
minds and creating these kinds of jobs, you know, is
it something that people want to do?
Speaker 3 (20:56):
Look, mining, no matter what you're mining, you're digging it
up out of the ground. It's just the nature of mining.
Now there's some efforts to maybe try recycling and all that,
but honestly that's quite expensive as well. Though I think
it'll get better traction as the years go on. But yeah,
I mean, I think in the United States there is
an openness to having you know, mines open at certain
locations where the minerals are. You know, there are good jobs.
(21:17):
There are people here that are willing to do those
jobs for sure. I mean, you know, look, we're a
miner of uranium, for instance. We have a good skilled workforce.
It's a very good paying job to be a minor
in the United States.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
How much is it, like, how much could I make
if I if I joined your company and started mining.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
You know, six figures, including you know, health insurance and
deafists starting plan and all that. Yeah, and some of
our miners are highly educated, but some of them don't
have a high school degree. So I mean it's it's
a good job. Now again you get paid a lot
because it's very difficult work and it's dangerous. Look, I
mean mining is dangerous. I mean it's a lot safer
than it used to be. But that's something that people
(21:55):
need to recognize as well, that the mining of today
is not the mining that was done one hundred or
two hundred or even thirty years ago. Right, it's constantly improving.
Health and safety and environmental standards are better today than
they've ever been. And you know, mining can be done
very responsibly and very you know, relatively safely. So there's
certainly an openness in the United States to do more.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
Of it, Curtis, just to pursue what Kati was mentioning.
There's this perception that mining and processing where earth is
very dirty is not very environmentally friendly. And that's also
this perception that that's why China has been successful because
I've got a lower standards environmentally than say the US.
Do you agree with this narrative.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
Somewhat. I would say that many of the videos and
pictures I've seen of let's say, modern Chinese rare earth production,
it looks quite good and it looks quite clean and safe.
Now again, if you go back thirty forty fifty years,
I'm sure it was less so. Well, it was probably
less so elsewhere in the world too, when it comes
to rare earth processing. Now, look, mining is essentially digging
(22:55):
rocks up out of the ground, and that is what
it is, right. You know, you can reclaim it and
it's fine, and it's it can be done completely responsibly
in an environmentally friendly manner. The processing, you know, you're
having to use chemicals and other reagents and things like
that to purify and refine and extract these elements. I
think some of the older practices were quite damaging. I
do know that there is some that goes on today
(23:17):
in certain parts of the world that is not very good,
but it's not inherently damaging to the environment or dangerous
or toxic. You know, for instance, everything we do at
our processing facility in the United States, it's done in
a contained plant. There's all kinds of protections to ensure
there's not leaks or you know, exposures of any kind
to our workers. We have state of the art, say
(23:39):
tailings facilities where the waste goes. These are triple lined
with leak detection and groundwater monitors to make sure that
there's not any sort of pollution to the surrounding environment. Again,
you can do it in ways that are not environmentally
friendly or in ways that are unhealthy and unsafe, but
you can also do them in very clean and protective ways.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
And could us just before I let you go, you know,
rare earth has really come to the forefront of you know,
especially like media Attenson. I'll be frank, I don't even
think I realized what rare earths were like, say two
years ago, Like is this a growth industry? Like what's
the demand outlook like for rare earth producers and refinance
like yourself over the next few years.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Oh, it's pretty exceptional. Actually, Again, as we see more
electrification happening around the world, whether you know, in mobility
electric vehicles now like in the United States and Europe,
I think electric vehicle consumer adoption has been a little
slower than what people would have expected, so that has
not grown as quickly as some may have thought, but
for instance, hybrid electric vehicles, those need just as many
(24:40):
rare earths as a pure electric vehicle. These rare earths
are used actually in the drive trains, essentially the motors
that provide power to the wheels in these vehicles. It's
not used in the batteries or anything like well, summer
used in the batteries, but the main use is in
the drive trains. That's seeing good growth. I think that
once we have a couple more technological breakthrough and battery technologies,
(25:01):
I do think that evs could see real good consumer
adoption because at that point, I think you could see
performance of evs be the equivalent of internal combustion engines
in terms of power and range and towing capacity and
hauling capacity and that sort of thing. Another big growth
industry is robots and advanced robotics. What creates a lot
of those very fast, precise and strong movements and robots
(25:24):
is rare earth magnets, and some forecasters projected that advance
robotics is going to overtake evs and hybrid evs and
mobility in the next say five to ten years. In
terms of demand, I think that the demand growth picture
is extremely strong for rare earths, so it's an exciting
place for us to be in energy fields right now.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Curtis, it was a great discussion. Thank you so much
for joining us.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
You're very welcome. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
You've been listening to Asia Centric from Bloomberg Intelligence. I'm
Katidomitriva in Hong Kong.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
I'm John Lee, also in Hong Kong. This podcast was
produced and edited by Clara Chen And You can listen
to all our episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Ready Listen.
Thanks for listening.
China has a near monopoly on rare earths, accounting for
close to sixty percent of global mining and over ninety
percent of processing. And importantly, China is using its dominant
position as a bargaining chip in their negotiations with the US.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
When President Trump announced Liberation Day tariffs, China immediately retaliated
by restricting supply of rare earths, causing companies like Forward
to halt production. The US has also issued several directives
around rare earths, including an investigation that could yield more tariffs.
So what are these minerals, why are they so important
(00:38):
to global trade and production? And how did China come
to dominate this space?
Speaker 1 (00:43):
You're listening to Age Eccentric from Bloomberg Intelligence.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
I'm John Lee in Hong Kong, and I'm Katydmitrieva, also
in Hong Kong.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Here to discuss everything related to rare earths is Curtis More,
senior vice president at Energy Fuels, a major uranium miner
that also produces rare earths. He's dialing in from Denver. Curtis,
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Hi, it's great to be here. Curtis, give us.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
A one oh one. What exactly are rare earths.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Yeah, I'm happy to do so. So, rare earths are
essentially the second to last line on the periodic table.
It is a series of metallic elements. It starts with
lanthanum and goes through syrium and praiseodemium and neodymium, also
including a yettrium and scandium. And they have just a
wide variety of important uses in a host of clean
(01:33):
energy technologies, other advanced technologies, military and defense technologies, and
other applications like that.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
So what are they if you can just describe because
my understanding is, you know, rare earths are critical minerals,
but you know, rare earths are a bit of a
misnomer because they're actually pretty widely available on Earth. It's
just getting to them and getting to them in large amounts.
Is that right?
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Yeah, that is correct. There's a lot of i'd say
confusion between rare earths and critical minerals, and some people
tend to use those two terms interchangeably. That is not
totally accurate. One way to think about it is that
rare earths are critical minerals, but critical minerals are not
necessarily rare earths, And it's also correct that it's a
misnomer that rare earths are rare in the Earth's crest.
(02:21):
They are actually quite common. But finding rare earths and
economically viable and accessible deposits is somewhat rare. And then
to actually extract those and process those minerals into usable
materials and products, that's extremely rare. And that is where
China absolutely dominates the global market right now.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
And how did China come to dominate this space, because
from understanding, you know, the US used to mine and
refine where Earth's maybe say twenty years ago. So tell
us the roadmap of how China came to be so dominant.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Well, again, I'm only speculating here, but I give China
and Chinese companies a lot lot of credit. I think
that they saw the future about thirty years ago. They
saw an area where the United States was kind of
stepping back from global markets, and I think a lot
of Chinese companies realized that there was an opportunity there,
a market opportunity based upon where certain technologies were headed
(03:17):
at that time, and so there was a vacuum that
got opened up by the United States, and Chinese companies
smartly stepped in to fill that vacuum. And so over
the last twenty or thirty plus years, Chinese companies have
expended a lot of resources and a lot of there's
been a lot of training, a lot of technology development
in rare mining and processing, and as a result, Chinese
(03:40):
companies have really taken a dominant position. I mean, I'll
tell you the mining of rare this is kind of
the easy part. You know, digging rocks up out of
the ground or extracting the minerals out of the ground,
that's kind of the easy part. But turning those minerals
into you know, say separated rare earth oxides or rare
earth metals or alloys or magnets or other advanced materials,
that's really the hard part. And that takes a lot
of technical know how and a lot of capital to
(04:02):
build the facilities that are needed to perform those functions.
And China has just really made it a priority and
as a result, they hold a dominant position today.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Yeah, it really took decades, right, Like you had that
component in particular, So it's the digging, it's finding it,
and then it's refining it as well. And they also
happened to invest or have ownership over some of the
world's biggest rare earth deposits. So like in Inner Mongolia
there's the world's largest rare earth deposit, and it's an
(04:31):
autonomous region of China, and so they've got some control
over it. Like how much of this is just luck
and you happen to have it in your own backyard?
And how much of it is actually investment in government
sponsorship and going out and finding perhaps friend showing for example.
And I guess what I'm getting at is can other
countries like the US replicate this.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
I would not say it was luck. I think it
was foresight. Honestly. I think they saw this opening in
the global markets, and they saw where a lot of
advanced technologies were going, and so they made a concerted
effort to go secure the resources to build out the
refining and processing capacity, to make the investments that are
necessary to create that capacity. Education, you know, in training
(05:13):
and workforce, you know, investments just across the spectrum. You know, again,
rares are not that rare. You know, sure there's better
deposits in certain areas, and yes, if you're blessed with
a good deposit in your nation, that's I guess maybe
that's a small amount of luck, but it takes more
than luck to achieve a dominant position in this industry.
I mean, I would say that other countries like the
United States and in Europe, Japan, South Korea, I think
(05:36):
there is a roadmap there for those countries to follow,
but it's also not going to happen overnight. There's been
a great deal of investment. This has been a multi
decade effort by China and Chinese companies, and I don't
think other countries are probably going to solve that or
achieve that level of success overnight.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
So how many years are we talking about codis, you know?
Speaker 3 (05:55):
I mean, I've often heard it said that the United
States kind of globalized a lot of our supply chains
over twenty or thirty years, and it may take twenty
thirty years to completely deglobalize it on things like critical minerals. Now,
I'm not sure I totally buy into that timeframe, but
it is a matter of years. And there's been a
number of challenges that Western rare earth companies have encountered.
(06:16):
There have been efforts to try to rebuild these supply
chains over the last several years that generally have not
been particularly successful. Now we are seeing I think the
level of support from the US government that is likely required.
There was the deal done with MP Materials a couple
of weeks ago. That's kind of the level of support
that it's going to take to try to catch up.
I mean, one of the big advantages that Chinese companies
(06:38):
have over US companies is that they already have their infrastructure.
They already have their refining and processing facilities and manufacturing
facilities already built. They've already got the vertical integration figured out,
and really that's just a way to lower costs and
to become more efficient, and so to be able to
replicate that in the West is it's going to take
a little bit of time and quite a bit of investment.
Now there are some again, some bright spot there, I
(07:00):
mean MP Materials, they're on a great path. I think
energy fuels were on a good path. But it's going
to take a long time to be able to match
what China has put together, just in.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Terms of the infrastructure. I mean, we've seen the Trump
administration take a number of steps the Section two thirty
two investigation that might add more tariffs on critical minerals
or rare earths. We've also seen this push starting in
March of this year to agencies to seek the development
of this in the US. What else does the US
(07:33):
government kind of need to do to start this process
of you know, what's the roadmap? What do they need
to do for companies like you and other peers to
sort of start developing this within the US.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
Well, I mean, again, I think the MP Materials deal
that was announced a couple of weeks ago is a
pretty good roadmap. Some of the aspects of that deal
were things like price floors to essentially guarantee that companies,
especially in their early stage, are able to preduce use
these advanced rare earth materials. And again, this isn't just
apply to rare it's I think this applies to all
(08:05):
critical minerals things, you know, other things like you know,
antimony and germanium and gallium and the whole spectrum there.
That's one of the challenges that Western companies have in
trying to compete with much more mature industries like they
have in China. You know, typically when you're just starting
out in an industry like this, your costs are just
simply higher. You haven't achieved those efficiencies and that those
(08:26):
competencies that are required, so you know some of the
price floors. I think that's a good way to approach it.
You know, low interest loans, grants, you know, government funding
to build out facilities, you know, government funding to help
train workforce and to build up an industry. And it'll
probably take you know, at least five or ten years
to build up a mature industry that can compete with
Chinese companies. I will say that those types of investments
(08:48):
and those types of efforts in the West I think
have not really occurred in the past. But it sounds
like Western governments are waking up to what is the
magnitude of what is really required here.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Asia Centric is produced by Bloomberg Intelligence. We're more than
five hundred experienced analysts and strategists work around the clock
to bring you timely, world class research. Our coverage spans
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(09:21):
If you like what you're hear, don't forget to subscribe
and share. Curtis just for the benefit of the listener.
The US Department of Defense invested in MP Materials. I
think the figure was like four hundred million dollars, and
this is the deal that we're referring to. It became
the largest sharehold of MP Materials, and let's be frank,
it had an amazing impact on the share price of
(09:44):
this company. I think it almost tripled, and your company
as well. Your stock price really ramped up as well.
Is this what it takes? Like, does it really need
the government support to build up the US rare eers infrastructure?
Speaker 3 (09:57):
You know, I'm not sure it takes actual government ownership.
I mean, I think it was just more the injection
of capital into MP Materials. And I think maybe the
US government or the DoD was, you know, looking to
maybe get a return on taxpayer money. If you're going
to invest, you know, hundreds of millions or billions of
dollars into a company rather than just give a private
company money, well let's see if the taxpayer can get
(10:19):
a return on it. I mean, again, I can't get
into their heads. I don't know what their thought was there,
but that seems to make sense to me. I have
my concerns about government ownership or becoming a major shareholder
in a company. I'd prefer that to not be the case.
But again, you know, if that's the way to get
the funding that the government has available, you know we
as a company would certainly be open to it.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
So MP Materials has the only active rare earth mind
in the US. It's really tough to build, as you said,
build out the infrastructure in the US for this. At
the same time, this directive from Trump in March, this
executive order to produce more domestically, I mean, is it
possible to have more minds this of MP.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
Well, first you need deposits, right, I will say, and
this may be somewhat controversial statement, but the US has
okay rare earth deposits, but not not exceptional rare earth deposits.
And there's a variety of efforts to try to build
out these minds in the United States. But the truth
is is that I think we can take a page
(11:23):
out of China's book, and you know, you don't have
to produce everything in country. It's okay if you're importing
minerals or raw materials from other countries, just like China does. Right,
And you're right, MP Materials has I'd say kind of
the main rare earth mind in the United States. You know,
our company, we're actually receiving rare earth ores from Florida
(11:43):
and Georgia. In the United States, we're actually approaching rare
earth production from a quite different standpoint. We're looking to
actually obtain rare earth minerals from other minds that these
are rare earth minerals that are produced as a byproduct
of other mining, primarily type tenium mines actually, which is
a different way to look at it. And actually, you know,
(12:04):
China does this. Chinese companies do this. We estimate that
probably ten or fifteen percent of China's rare earth industry
is supported in the same manner that we're going about this,
where we're getting these monozite and xenotime minerals from heavy
mineral sand operations. I mean, that's kind of one of
the dirty little secrets I guess I could say about
rare earths is that not only are they not rare,
(12:25):
but they're actually already mined all over the world as
a byproduct of other mining. And honestly, rare earth minds
that are just single commodity rare earth mines where all
they do is rare earth honestly at a bit of
a competitive disadvantage versus other minds that maybe produce a
number of commodities from the same deposit.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
And you're getting these U said, from Florida and Georgia.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
Yep. Yeah, So these are essentially titanium and zircon mines
is what they are. Now. Most titanium and zircon, i'd say,
are kind of boring industrial materials. I mean, I don't
want to minimize them. And of course there are high
tech and very critical uses for titanium and zircon and
zirconium and things. But you know, most titanium goes into
paint and pigment and you know, mix your your paper
white and things like that. Most zircon goes into just
(13:10):
you know, ceramics, you know, like tile in your kitchen
and things like that. And there's a, you know, a
robust global market for titanium and zircon and those types
of minerals. But right alongside those titanium and zircon minerals
are other minerals that are full of rare earths, primarily
monozite and xenotyme, and those are some wonderful rare earth
minerals because they have really good concentrations of the light,
(13:33):
the middle and the heavy rare earths. And you hear
a lot about those categories in the rare earth industry.
And that might be another rare earth one on one
lesson here, But whenever you hear about light rare earths,
people are primarily talking about neodymium and praiseodemium or ndpr.
Those are the light rare earths that are used in magnets,
and these magnets are used primarily in electric vehicles, in
(13:56):
hybrid electric vehicles, advanced robotics, certain wind energy technologies. Of course,
military and defense. You'll also hear about heavy rare earths.
There's two main magnet heavy rare earths, that's urbium and dysprosium.
That's TB and d Y and again you create these
very powerful magnets, neodymium magnets. They are used in those applications.
(14:18):
There are other heavy rare earths, you know, things like
lutetium and yetrium and others that have important military and
defense technologies, and those are the ones that are on
the export control list that the Chinese government put in place.
That's urbium and dysprosium and yttrium, samarium, gadolinium. Those are
kind of the middle rares, sometimes categorized as heavies, but yeah,
(14:39):
the main uses are magnets and some other applications and Curtis.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
When China restricted some of the supply of the rare earths,
we saw companies hope production and it was notable that
Ford had to cut back production in one of their plants.
How much supply does the US have right now and
how quickly will it run out if China were to say,
you know, tun off the taps.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
You know that. I don't know. I know it's not infinite.
As an American, I know I hope that the US
military has enough. I presume they have enough foresight to
have stockpiles to get them through. But in terms of
like a Ford or a General Motors, or even a
Kia or Hyundai or Mercedes, yeah, I don't know. But again,
the fact that Ford had to shut down a plant,
(15:23):
that's very telling. I do know that there is a
lot of effort out there by these companies to try
to procure rare earth materials that don't come from China,
And honestly, the sources are very limited. I mean you
have you know, MP Materials, which is producing DPR oxide
that's the light magnet rare earth oxide. And I think
they're up to two thousand or twenty five hundred metric
(15:45):
tons of NDPR oxide per year. And just for context,
a typical electric vehicle needs an additional say half a
kilogram to kilogram of NDPR oxide per vehicle, you know,
so if you're producing say two thousand tons of dpr ocid,
that's enough for say two to four million evs per
year or hybrid evs per year, just kind of for context.
(16:05):
And so Linus is a company out of Australia that
is the largest non Chinese producer of rare earth oxides
in the world. They mine in Western Australia. They do
some early processing also in Western Australian. I think they
do the separations in Malaysia where they also produce NDPR oxide.
I saw that they recently started production of d y
oxide or disprosium oxide, which was a big achievement for them.
(16:28):
We're going to be producing a pilot scale d Y
oxide here in the next few weeks. That's a big deal.
It's a big accomplishment because China really has dominance in
the heavy rare earth market, which is what disprosium oxide is.
It's one of the heavies. But besides that, you get
down to processing. You know, you have you know, companies
like Neo Performance Materials. They're a Canadian company that has
a processing plant in Estonia, and some other plants in Thailand,
(16:52):
I believe, and ownership and some Chinese plants. There's Japanese
and Korean companies that do a rare earth metallization and
aling and magnet making for their customers. But it's still
a bit of a nation industry at this stage. When
you get down to the especially the oxides and the
rare earth metals and alloys and magnets and that sort
of thing. Again, that's really where China has the dominance.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Yeah, Curtis, you make several good points. I mean you're
really underscoring some of the issues here, right because critical
minerals rare earth's quite dispersed. I mean, yes, China has
the monopoly, but you know there's Canada, there's Greenland, Australia,
other places that are producing this stuff refining it. Southeast
Asian countries that are also there's mines there the DRC
(17:33):
of course with mines. Now, by twenty thirty, the US
is projected to hold less than two percent of global
critical minerals, and that compares to thirty one percent for China.
So it's not clear that the US at this point
can really ramp up their own production of this stuff.
(17:53):
So how important is it that the US really tries
to as opposed to maybe like ramping up production at home,
also does things like friend shoring or forming those kinds
of trade deals to try to get the rare earths
from friendly countries, because that seems like important, but it's
kind of the opposite is being done now with tariffs.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Yeah, no, I one hundred percent agree with you. Look,
you know, the United States is blessed with a lot
of minerals, but we don't have the best deposits of
every critical mineral in the world. And frankly, some of
the efforts to say produce like rare earth's out of
say like coal waste or something I think is frankly stupid.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Wait why is it stupid?
Speaker 3 (18:35):
It would be insanely expensive. You know, So you run coal,
you know, you know, you burn coal on a plant,
and yeah, you have coal ash and coal waste, and yeah,
sure there's rare earths in it, but it's wildly expensive
to try to extract those trace concentrations of rare earths
out of things like coal waste. I think again, you know,
rares aren't rare, but to be able to find a
deposit that's that's even remotely competitive globally. That's what's hard.
(18:58):
I mean, look, if you have unlimited money, sure you
can produce rares out of probably seawater, but that doesn't
make any sense. And again, at the end of the
day as well, these end users, whether you're a Ford
or a GM or a Mercedes or a Hyundai or whoever,
I think they're willing to maybe pay a little bit
more for non Chinese wearers, but you know they can't
pay three, four, five, ten times more for their wearers
(19:19):
than they could otherwise get from China. I mean, they
have their own competitive pressure points, right. You know, they
can't start paying more for all these components in their vehicles,
they will rapidly become uneconomic. So again, I think it's
very important for the United States to mine our good deposits.
We do have good deposits of rares in certain critical minerals.
But we also have to recognize that we don't have
everything here, and yes, we do need to do more
(19:41):
friend shoring and mining and processing, you know, with our allies,
not using our allies, but partnering with our allies.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
And you know, President Trump has been really focused on
where It may be a reason why he's shown so
much interest in Greenland because he doesn't have enough of
reserves in rares.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
Well, look, earths are not rare. I'm sure Greenland has
rare earths, but I don't think Greenland is going to
be producing rare earths anytime soon. Now, maybe in twenty
thirty forty years. That could be you know, a place
that's a source of a good source of rares. But
there's better, i'd say, more accessible deposits. You know, Greenland
has very little infrastructure. It'd be pretty expensive to produce
rares up there right right now.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Anyway, you mentioned the infrastructure, the high costs, and one
other thing that we haven't really talked about is the
environmental impact and the quality of jobs. It just strikes
me that you know, there's been a shift in manufacturing,
for example, to hire higher skilled manufacturing. A lot of
it has become less dirty, more clean, But mining, especially
mining of rare earths and critical minerals, is not one
(20:41):
of those. I mean, the reality is you have to
dig for them. I wonder if it makes sense for
the US to prioritize opening more of these kinds of
minds and creating these kinds of jobs, you know, is
it something that people want to do?
Speaker 3 (20:56):
Look, mining, no matter what you're mining, you're digging it
up out of the ground. It's just the nature of mining.
Now there's some efforts to maybe try recycling and all that,
but honestly that's quite expensive as well. Though I think
it'll get better traction as the years go on. But yeah,
I mean, I think in the United States there is
an openness to having you know, mines open at certain
locations where the minerals are. You know, there are good jobs.
(21:17):
There are people here that are willing to do those
jobs for sure. I mean, you know, look, we're a
miner of uranium, for instance. We have a good skilled workforce.
It's a very good paying job to be a minor
in the United States.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
How much is it, like, how much could I make
if I if I joined your company and started mining.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
You know, six figures, including you know, health insurance and
deafists starting plan and all that. Yeah, and some of
our miners are highly educated, but some of them don't
have a high school degree. So I mean it's it's
a good job. Now again you get paid a lot
because it's very difficult work and it's dangerous. Look, I
mean mining is dangerous. I mean it's a lot safer
than it used to be. But that's something that people
(21:55):
need to recognize as well, that the mining of today
is not the mining that was done one hundred or
two hundred or even thirty years ago. Right, it's constantly improving.
Health and safety and environmental standards are better today than
they've ever been. And you know, mining can be done
very responsibly and very you know, relatively safely. So there's
certainly an openness in the United States to do more.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
Of it, Curtis, just to pursue what Kati was mentioning.
There's this perception that mining and processing where earth is
very dirty is not very environmentally friendly. And that's also
this perception that that's why China has been successful because
I've got a lower standards environmentally than say the US.
Do you agree with this narrative.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
Somewhat. I would say that many of the videos and
pictures I've seen of let's say, modern Chinese rare earth production,
it looks quite good and it looks quite clean and safe.
Now again, if you go back thirty forty fifty years,
I'm sure it was less so. Well, it was probably
less so elsewhere in the world too, when it comes
to rare earth processing. Now, look, mining is essentially digging
(22:55):
rocks up out of the ground, and that is what
it is, right. You know, you can reclaim it and
it's fine, and it's it can be done completely responsibly
in an environmentally friendly manner. The processing, you know, you're
having to use chemicals and other reagents and things like
that to purify and refine and extract these elements. I
think some of the older practices were quite damaging. I
do know that there is some that goes on today
(23:17):
in certain parts of the world that is not very good,
but it's not inherently damaging to the environment or dangerous
or toxic. You know, for instance, everything we do at
our processing facility in the United States, it's done in
a contained plant. There's all kinds of protections to ensure
there's not leaks or you know, exposures of any kind
to our workers. We have state of the art, say
(23:39):
tailings facilities where the waste goes. These are triple lined
with leak detection and groundwater monitors to make sure that
there's not any sort of pollution to the surrounding environment. Again,
you can do it in ways that are not environmentally
friendly or in ways that are unhealthy and unsafe, but
you can also do them in very clean and protective ways.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
And could us just before I let you go, you know,
rare earth has really come to the forefront of you know,
especially like media Attenson. I'll be frank, I don't even
think I realized what rare earths were like, say two
years ago, Like is this a growth industry? Like what's
the demand outlook like for rare earth producers and refinance
like yourself over the next few years.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Oh, it's pretty exceptional. Actually, Again, as we see more
electrification happening around the world, whether you know, in mobility
electric vehicles now like in the United States and Europe,
I think electric vehicle consumer adoption has been a little
slower than what people would have expected, so that has
not grown as quickly as some may have thought, but
for instance, hybrid electric vehicles, those need just as many
(24:40):
rare earths as a pure electric vehicle. These rare earths
are used actually in the drive trains, essentially the motors
that provide power to the wheels in these vehicles. It's
not used in the batteries or anything like well, summer
used in the batteries, but the main use is in
the drive trains. That's seeing good growth. I think that
once we have a couple more technological breakthrough and battery technologies,
(25:01):
I do think that evs could see real good consumer
adoption because at that point, I think you could see
performance of evs be the equivalent of internal combustion engines
in terms of power and range and towing capacity and
hauling capacity and that sort of thing. Another big growth
industry is robots and advanced robotics. What creates a lot
of those very fast, precise and strong movements and robots
(25:24):
is rare earth magnets, and some forecasters projected that advance
robotics is going to overtake evs and hybrid evs and
mobility in the next say five to ten years. In
terms of demand, I think that the demand growth picture
is extremely strong for rare earths, so it's an exciting
place for us to be in energy fields right now.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Curtis, it was a great discussion. Thank you so much
for joining us.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
You're very welcome. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
You've been listening to Asia Centric from Bloomberg Intelligence. I'm
Katidomitriva in Hong Kong.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
I'm John Lee, also in Hong Kong. This podcast was
produced and edited by Clara Chen And You can listen
to all our episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Ready Listen.
Thanks for listening.
Hosts And Creators
John Lee
Tom Corbett
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!