Japanese Firms to Recover Rare Earth Magnets from ACs, Targeting Supply Chain Resilience

This week, the ex-China rare earth market exhibited a trend of accelerated project deployment and price divergence. Price-wise, affected by undersupply in China, prices of praseodymium oxide, neodymium oxide, and corresponding metals rose notably, while other light rare earth and heavy rare earth prices remained generally stable. In terms of trading, Pr-Nd exports declined, and exports of heavy rare earths such as dysprosium and terbium remained restricted. Ex-China developments were active: US-based USA Rare Earth completed its first commercial yttrium metal casting and established a partnership with France's Carester; Japan launched a rare earth magnet recycling initiative for air conditioning compressors; Brazil's Aclara confirmed the commissioning plan for the Carina project in 2028; Canada's Neo achieved a breakthrough in terbium-dysprosium separation in Estonia; meanwhile, resource volumes in Finland, Alaska, Greenland, and other regions expanded significantly; Australia and the US provided financing for critical minerals projects; China's export controls raised European supply chain concerns; and Malaysian civil society organizations opposed the supply agreement between Lynas and the US Department of National Defense.

[SMM Rare Earth Outside China] US rare earth producer USA Rare Earth (USAR) has produced commercial-grade yttrium metal through its wholly-owned subsidiary Less Common Metals (LCM). It is reported that the purity of the yttrium metal produced this time is between 99-99.5%. USAR acquired LCM in September 2025 for $125 million. LCM has a metal manufacturing capacity of 1,500 mt/year and plans to increase its rapid-solidification permanent magnet strip casting capacity by 26,000 mt/year in the UK, US, and France by 2030.

According to Reuters, Swedish mining company LKAB is facing criticism after a report suggested its planned rare earths project near Kiruna could violate Sámi Indigenous rights. The deposit is estimated at around 1.2 billion tonnes of ore, containing about 2.2 million tonnes of rare earth elements, but the mine could interfere with traditional reindeer herding routes. The project is likely to face legal and social challenges as tensions rise between mineral development and Indigenous land use.