Bao Gang United Steel's Rare Earth Automotive Steel Passes Major Automaker's Painting Certification

【SMM News on March 4】Driven by rising domestic prices and international energy prices, overseas lanthanum-cerium oxide prices increased across the board. Lanthanum oxide FOB was assessed at $960-1,020/mt, up $30/mt; cerium oxide FOB was assessed at $1,883-1,967/mt, up $125/mt; and cerium oxide CIF (Port of Rotterdam) was assessed at $2,550-2,560/mt, up $135/mt. According to the SMM survey, this round of price increases was a normal market fluctuation and has not yet caused significant cost pressure on overseas buyers.

Australia’s St George Mining announced on Monday a resource update for its Araxa rare earths project in Brazil, representing an increase of up to 75%. St George, which owned 100% of the project, said this was the result of work conducted since July 2025. The company said the Araxa project’s ore resource had increased from 40 million mt to 70.91 million mt. The total rare earth oxides (TREO) grade was 4.06%, and the niobium (Nb2O5) grade was 0.62%.

The US Defense Logistics Agency signed a contract with rare earth producer REalloys to support the development of next-generation thermal reduction technology for samarium and gadolinium metals. The core of the effort is to build a plant with an annual capacity of 300 mt to reduce mixed samarium–europium–gadolinium concentrates into high-purity metals. At present, the US has no commercial production of either metal and is heavily reliant on overseas supply. REalloys said its process can cut costs by 50% and has been patented. The move aims to establish domestic capacity and strengthen national defense supply chain security.