Global Rare Earth Reserves: Who's Really Sitting on the Gold Mine?

Rare earth elements are the new oil—and the supply chain wars are heating up. Here’s the real tea: China dominates with 44M metric tons of reserves (270K MT production in 2024), but there’s a plot twist.

The underdog nations: Brazil has 21M MT of reserves but barely produces. That’s changing fast—Serra Verde’s Pela Ema mine is ramping up and will pump out 5K MT annually by 2026, producing all four critical magnet rare earths outside of China.

The pecking order:

• China: 44M MT (still crushing it)
• Brazil: 21M MT (sleeping giant waking up)
• India: 6.9M MT (sitting on beach/sand deposits)
• Australia: 5.7M MT (ramping up via Lynas & Hastings)
• Russia: 3.8M MT (reserves dropped 60% YoY, war complications)
• Vietnam: 3.5M MT (reserves slashed from 22M—executives arrested in 2023)
• US: 1.9M MT (only Mountain Pass mine operating, but pushing into downstream magnets)
• Greenland: 1.5M MT (Trump’s watching closely, but Denmark said “no deal”)

Why it matters: Global production hit 390K MT in 2024, up from 100K MT a decade ago. EV + AI boom = demand explosion. The separation process? Brutal—takes 100s-1000s of cycles to achieve purity.

The environmental elephant: Mining releases radioactive waste. Myanmar’s mountains are wrecked—2,700 illegal leaching pools identified as of mid-2022, area size of Singapore. Same damage spreading in Southern China.

Bottom line: Supply chains are reshoring, but expect volatility as new players come online.