From Reuters via MSN, December 22:
This Dec. 21 story has been corrected to clarify that the ban was on the export of technology to make rare earth magnets and that the ban on technology to extract and separate critical materials was already in place, in paragraphs 1 and 6. It also removes context and the comment on rare earth processing operations, in paragraphs 3 and paragraphs 18-20.China, the world's top processor of rare earths, banned the export of technology to make rare earth magnets on Thursday, adding it to a ban already in place on technology to extract and separate the critical materials.
Rare earths are a group of 17 metals used to make magnets that turn power into motion for use in electric vehicles, wind turbines and electronics.
"This should be a clarion call that dependence on China in any part of the value chain is not sustainable," said Nathan Picarsic, co-founder of the geopolitical consulting firm Horizon Advisory.
China's commerce ministry sought public opinion last December on the potential move to add the technology to prepare smarium-cobalt magnets, neodymium-iron-boron magnets and cerium magnets to its "Catalogue of Technologies Prohibited and Restricted from Export."
In the list it also banned technology to make rare-earth calcium oxyborate and production technology for rare earth metals, adding them to a previous ban on production of rare earth alloy materials....
....MUCH MORE
And from China's outward-facing propaganda organ, Global Times, December 22:
Regulation on rare-earth extraction technology ‘in line with international practice’
No added costs or obstacles to doing business for equal trading partner: analysts
China's revised catalogue for technologies that are banned and restricted from export is in line with international practice and is aimed at safeguarding economic security, Chinese analysts said, warning that Western smears against the country's role as a stable supplier of the vital rare-earth metals are groundless and carry ulterior aims....
....MUCH MORE
And as noted in May's "Rare Earths: Reminder, Combined Brazilian and Vietnamese Resource Base Approximately Equals China's Proven and Probable Reserves":
Mining
the stuff is relatively straightforward. The huge difference is that
Brazil and Vietnam do not have the refining and fabricating
infrastructure that China does....
Another 2023 post on rare earths, this one January 14:
"Huge rare earth metals discovery in Arctic Sweden"
They aren't that rare. Just hard to find in the right proportions of the different rare earth elements. And in concentrations high enough to make extraction a paying proposition.
And requiring some technical expertise to fabricate into end products. It's not as if there are neodymium magnets just laying around...
And in 2022's "Huge rare earth reserve discovered in Turkey, but experts caution that ‘grade is king’"
Not just grade. The composition of a deposit, the amounts of the 17 rare earth elements is critical. As one example, the Mountain Pass mine in the U.S. despite its relatively high grade (8% REEs) is actually not as valuable as some lower grade mines with a more profitable mix.
Additionally, exploitation of a REE resource is highly dependent on processing and supply chain factors that can not quickly be brought into being, it's one thing to have the deposit, quite another to have, for example, the end product, a neodymium magnet.
Meanwhile, China is trying to carrot-and-stick one of the few countries that does refining and fabricating for a western producer, to stop those endeavors.
