At the end of last week, China set the third series of production quotas for rare earths for the current year, as reported by Reuters. This is usually done twice a year and is closely monitored as an indicator of the supply of raw materials. The last quota was published in September and set at 240,000 tonnes; with the third series, the production volume has now been upgraded to 255,000 tonnes. The target for the smelting and separation of rare earths has also been increased from 230,000 tonnes to 243,850 tonnes.
While the extraction rate for this group of raw materials remained constant at just over 100,000 tonnes per year from 2014 to 2017, there has been a continuous increase since 2018 and a significant increase from 2022. One reason for this is likely to be the growing demand for rare earth components for wind energy and electromobility.
Graphic: rawmaterials.net, source: own research
Photo: iStock/ArtEvent ET
