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This week, the overseas rare earth market revolved around three main themes: technological breakthroughs, capacity expansion, and geopolitical strategy. Enterprises in the US and Canada made substantial progress in rare earth recycling technology, while South Korea adopted a two-way strategy in supply chain cooperation. At the same time, the US launched a large-scale strategic stockpiling plan, highlighting the urgency of global efforts to achieve autonomy in rare earth supply chains. Additionally, resource-rich countries such as Russia and India accelerated their exploration layouts, while Japan and the EU enhanced the resilience of the industry chain through corporate restructuring and international cooperation.

The head of the Economic Crime Prosecution Department and a member of the procuratorial committee of the Supreme People's Procuratorate stated that procuratorial organs have always performed their duties in accordance with the law, severely punished smuggling crimes, fully safeguarded border security, and actively served the overall situation of higher-level opening up. Currently, smuggling crimes have exhibited new characteristics such as large-scale and organized operations, causing significant losses to national tax revenue.

[SMM Rare Earth Weekly Review: Pr-Nd Prices Remain High, Downstream Procurement Activities Decrease] This week, the market quotation for Pr-Nd oxide remained high. Suppliers held optimistic expectations for the future market and were unwilling to sell at low prices. However, downstream buyers gradually began holidays and halted procurement, leading to a noticeable decline in the actual trading activity of Pr-Nd oxide. As of today, the price of Pr-Nd oxide fluctuated and rose to 747,000-753,000 yuan/mt.

US technology company Supra Elemental Recovery has successfully raised $2 million and officially launched its proprietary reusable "sponge-like" filter cartridge technology. This technology is capable of recovering gallium and scandium from industrial by-products, mine tailings, and electronic waste. Supra stated that the raised funds will be used to advance the further development of the recovery technology, fully preparing for a commercial pilot project in 2026. Additionally, Supra is currently testing technologies to recover high-purity critical minerals, including cobalt, lithium, and certain rare earth elements, from other materials.

[SMM Flash: US's Supra to Launch Gallium and Scandium Recovery Project] US technology company Supra Elemental Recovery has successfully raised $2 million and officially launched its proprietary reusable "sponge-like" filter cartridge technology. This technology is capable of recovering gallium and scandium from industrial by-products, mine tailings, and electronic waste. Supra stated that the raised funds will be used to advance the further development of the recovery technology, fully preparing for a commercial pilot project in 2026. Additionally, Supra is currently testing technologies to recover high-purity critical minerals from other materials, including cobalt, lithium, and some rare earth elements. Currently, due to export controls implemented by China, Western countries face constraints in terms of supply for gallium, scandium, and other rare earth elements.

The deep-sea drilling vessel "Chikyu" successfully extracted rare earth-containing mud at a depth of 6,000 meters in the waters near Minamitorishima. The project leader indicated that this initiative aims to promote diversification of rare earth sources and reduce external dependence, with commercial mining expected to commence in February 2027. However, Japanese media pointed out that deep-sea mining faces technical and economic challenges: the 6,000-meter deep-sea environment is equivalent to 550 atmospheres of pressure, posing high risks of equipment failure; mining costs are more than 10 times those of land-based rare earths, the commercialization cycle may exceed 10 years, and ecological risks are irreversible.

Chile has released its National Critical Minerals Strategy, clearly positioning itself as a stable supplier of minerals. Currently, driven by artificial intelligence, the development of new technologies, and the energy transition, global demand for these critical minerals continues to grow. The announcement of this strategy holds particular significance in the weeks before President Boric leaves office, highlighting Chile’s intention to transition from over-reliance on the copper industry toward adapting to a decarbonized economy and achieving resource diversification. Chile has identified 14 critical minerals, specifically covering copper, lithium, molybdenum, rhenium, cobalt, rare earths, antimony, selenium, tellurium, gold, silver, iron ore, boron, and iodine. Based on Chile’s current position in the global market, these 14 minerals are categorized into three groups: The first category includes copper, lithium, molybdenum, and rhenium. Their respective shares in global supply are 23%, 20.4%, 14.6%, and 46.8%, and other major economies have also designated these minerals as critical. The second category consists of minerals that are currently not produced or only produced in small quantities, including cobalt, rare earths, antimony, selenium, and tellurium. The third category comprises minerals already produced domestically in Chile with the potential to expand their role in the global value chain, such as gold, silver, iron ore, boron, and iodine.

This week, overseas prices continued to rise due to multiple factors, and shipments tightened further. Key developments emerged in raw ore mining across the US, Asia, and Latin America. The US government strengthened domestic rare earth capacity through large-scale funding, a Malaysia-France cooperation project achieved substantial progress, Brazil formulated a national rare earth strategy to unlock resource potential, and India considered adjustments to mining policies to enhance extraction efficiency. These measures collectively reflect countries' heightened focus on rare earth supply chain security, though technological, cost, and capacity bottlenecks remain widespread challenges.

Two informed sources revealed that to accelerate mining production, India is considering tightening its mineral rights auction policy to exclude mining enterprises that fail to apply for mining permits long after winning the auction. Official data show that since 2015, the Indian government has auctioned 594 mineral blocks, of which only 82 are in production, accounting for less than 14%. Sources said an internal government audit found that over the past five years, about 50 enterprises had not commenced mining after acquiring blocks, with some even failing to apply for mining permits. The two informed sources declined to be named as they were not authorized to speak. The Indian Ministry of Mines also did not respond to an email request for comment.

French rare earths specialist Caresterand Malaysian miner Malaco Mining Group have teamed up to work on a rare earths separation plant, and will also collaborate on rare earth mining,an adviser to French President Emmanuel Macron said in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday. The cooperation agreement on the separation plant project, which is ir its"pilot stage",will include technology transfers to Malaco as well as expertise to ensure environmental compliance,said Benjamin Gallezot,an adviser on strategic minerals,after meeting with Malaysian government officials. Western countries are trying to develop sources of rare earths,used in electric vehicles,smartphones and other high-tech products,to reduce reliance on China,the world's largest rare earths producer. Malaysia is looking to foreign partners to help develop its domestic rareearths industry.The country has an estimated 16.1 million tonnes of rare earths deposits but lacks the technological capacity to mine and process them.

Mali's military and political leadership has established a new ministerial body to oversee the mining industry, strengthening the government's direct supervision of the critical gold mining sector, and has appointed a former executive of Barrick Mining as its head. According to the legal document outlining the role, the minister is authorized to supervise the implementation of mining policies, monitor compliance with mining laws, and review reports submitted by mining rights holders—responsibilities previously handled by the Ministry of Mines.

St George Mining announced an in-depth collaboration with REAlloys of the US. REAlloys is conducting metallurgical testing on rare earth ore samples sourced from St George Mining's Araxa project in Brazil. The final off-take agreement between the two parties has been extended from 120 days to one year.

Sovereign Metals announced the discovery of rare earth monazite at its Kasiya project in Malawi. The company stated that preliminary analysis confirmed the Kasiya monazite contains "exceptionally high-grade" heavy rare earth elements such as dysprosium, terbium, and yttrium, as well as high-grade light rare earth elements including Pr-Nd. The company reported contents of Pr-Nd (21.9%), dysprosium and terbium (2.9%), and yttrium (11.9%), with the proportion of heavy rare earths at Kasiya surpassing that of the world's top five producers.