Global Rare Earths Supply: Why Reserve Rankings Don't Tell the Full Story

As the world races toward clean energy and advanced tech, rare earths have become the new frontier in supply chain competition. But here’s the catch — controlling the largest reserves doesn’t necessarily mean you control the market. Case study: Brazil sits on 21 million metric tons of rare earths resources, yet produced virtually nothing in 2024. Meanwhile, China’s 44 million metric tons came with 270,000 MT of actual production, cementing its stranglehold on global supply.

The disconnect between reserves and output reveals the real challenge facing industries dependent on these critical materials. As demand accelerates for EV batteries, wind turbines, and high-tech components, the question isn’t just who has the most rare earths — it’s who can actually extract and refine them reliably.

The Reserve Giants: China Still Rules, But Competition Is Heating Up

According to the latest US Geological Survey data, global rare earths reserves total 130 million metric tons. China leads with 44 million MT, followed by Brazil at 21 million MT. But production tells a different story entirely.

China produced 270,000 MT in 2024, representing roughly 69% of the world’s 390,000 MT annual output. The country’s dominance has actually tightened over recent years, despite past efforts by other nations to diversify supply. This concentration has created recurring supply shocks — most notably in 2010 when China’s export restrictions sent prices surging and triggered a global scramble for alternative sources.

India holds 6.9 million MT in reserves and produced 2,900 MT in 2024. Australia ranks fourth with 5.7 million MT but only 13,000 MT in production. Russia, Vietnam, the United States, and Greenland round out the top eight, each holding between 1.5 and 3.8 million MT.

Production Capacity: The Real Bottleneck

Here’s where the supply chain complexity emerges. Vietnam’s reserves were revised downward from 22 million MT to 3.5 million MT in a single year — a 84% reduction that signals how quickly reserve estimates can shift based on extraction feasibility and regulatory environment. Vietnam produced just 300 MT in 2024 despite those reserves, partly due to regulatory crackdowns that arrested six industry executives in October 2023.

The US produced 45,000 MT from its single Mountain Pass mine in California, making it the second-largest producer globally despite holding only 1.9 million MT in reserves. This efficiency gap highlights how extraction technology and operational maturity matter as much as geological abundance.

New Players Emerging, But Timelines Are Uncertain

Brazil’s Serra Verde project began Phase 1 commercial production in early 2024 at the Pela Ema deposit. By 2026, the company expects to produce 5,000 MT annually — a modest figure but significant because Pela Ema will produce all four critical magnet rare earths (neodymium, praseodymium, terbium, and dysprosium) that only Chinese operations currently supply at scale.

Australia’s Lynas Rare Earths expansion at Mount Weld is scheduled for completion in 2025, with a new processing facility in Kalgoorlie already producing mixed rare earth carbonate feed. Hastings Technology Metals’ Yangibana mine in Australia is shovel-ready with an offtake agreement in place, targeting first concentrate delivery in Q4 2026.

Greenland hosts 1.5 million MT in reserves across multiple projects, including Tanbreez and Kvanefjeld. However, permitting challenges have slowed development — Greenland’s government revoked Energy Transition Minerals’ Kvanefjeld license due to uranium extraction concerns, and subsequent amended plans were rejected in September 2023. The company awaits a court ruling as of October 2024.

The Geopolitical Dimension

US-China tensions over rare earths supply have intensified. In December 2023, China banned technology exports for manufacturing rare earth magnets, directly targeting US EV and defense capabilities. Concurrently, China has increased imports of heavy rare earths from Myanmar — a country without public reserve data reported by the USGS. While this diversifies China’s own supply, Myanmar’s rare earths mining has accelerated environmental damage, with Global Witness documenting 2,700 illegal in-situ leaching collection pools covering an area the size of Singapore as of mid-2022.

The Biden Administration allocated $17.5 million in April 2024 for rare earths extraction from secondary coal sources, signaling renewed US focus on domestic supply resilience. However, capacity expansion remains years away.

What This Means for Supply Chain Risk

Global production increased to 390,000 MT in 2024 from 376,000 MT the prior year — a modest 3.7% gain. A decade ago, production was just above 100,000 MT. While growth is accelerating, the pace remains insufficient for projected demand in clean energy infrastructure.

The real supply constraint isn’t geology — it’s extraction capacity, processing infrastructure, environmental compliance, and geopolitical stability. Reserve rankings matter less than answering this question: which nations can consistently deliver the output the world actually needs?

Brazil, Australia, and the US could collectively add meaningful production within 3-5 years, but China’s operational head start and cost advantages mean any diversification strategy will take decades to substantially reduce dependency. Until new capacity comes online at scale, the rare earths supply chain will remain tight and vulnerable to disruption.