Editorial-grade cinematic industrial photograph of a rare-earth processing plant at dawn, silver pipes and separation tanks glowing against a deep teal sky, a s

Rare earths · October 2026 · The new economics of supply.

The Price Moat Has Been Rewritten

Lynas reports China’s domestic NdPr price reached US$100.8/kg in June 2026—about US$9/kg below the US$110/kg floors Washington and Japan-backed JARE wrote into Western supply contracts.

~US$9/kg below the policy floor

Low prices deterred rival supply: USGS annual NdPr averages fell from US$92/kg in 2021 and US$124 in 2022 to US$75 in 2023, US$55 in 2024 and US$69 in 2025.

The Pentagon’s July 2025 deal gave MP Materials a 10-year US$110/kg floor. Japan-backed JARE matched that floor for 5,000 tonnes of Lynas NdPr annually over 12 years.

Lynas attributes China’s rise from US$55.0/kg in June 2025 to US$100.8/kg in June 2026 to floor-price agreements. That exact pair is single-sourced to Lynas and unreconciled across VAT and date bases.

~US$42/kg → ~US$17.5/kg

Approximate top-up, Q1→Q2 2026. Derived from reported PPA income of US$59.853M in H1 and US$17.58M in Q2, implying ~US$42.3M in Q1. Covered stockpiles limit precision; a return toward US$55/kg would widen the top-up again.

Q2: US$94.434M NdPr revenue · US$20.3M loss · US$28.5M adjusted EBITDA, including US$17.6M PPA income

Mine diversification happened earlier. Processing diversification is only beginning.

China mine share: 84.7% (2015) → 68.6% (2023) → 69.2% (2025)
2025 mine output: China: 270,000 of 390,000 tonnes globally
Non-China output: ~19,000 tonnes (2015) → 120,000 (2025)
China refining share: >90% (2023) → 85% (2025) → potentially 70% (2035)
Measure caveat: Mine and refining data use different bases; refining estimates are IEA-only and 2035 depends on projects arriving on schedule

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of expected 2035 mine output covered by planned magnet capacity—the bottleneck shifts from ore to refining and magnet-making

Public finance rose >4× to US$65B in 2023–25; the gap remains, and the IEA outlook assumes projects arrive on schedule.

China’s April 2025 licensing regime for seven medium and heavy rare earths remains in force. Broader October controls were suspended from 7 Nov 2025 to 10 Nov 2026; a reported extension to 10 Jan 2027 is unverified against a primary MOFCOM notice.

USGS: China supplied 100% of US terbium and holmium compounds in 2021–24; the US had no sustained commercial-scale heavy-rare-earth output in 2025. May 2026 ex-China prices—dysprosium oxide ~US$1,450/kg and terbium oxide ~US$4,500/kg, four-to-fivefold pre-control—come through a secondary Reuters/Argus reporting chain.

Lynas produced 19 tonnes of dysprosium and terbium in the June 2026 quarter. March output of 8 tonnes and the Malaysian expansion-cost increase from A$180m to A$294m are secondary-source reporting.

“The price moat is gone. The permission moat is intact.”
— Heavy rare earths · export access

USGS · 2025 movement

Import volume: +169%
Estimated import value: US$168M → US$165M
Interpretation: One-year movement—not proof of a permanent trend