per kilogram during 2025 — figures that would have seemed implausible
two years ago. Neodymium oxide held roughly US$73 per kilogram. The
rare-earth price complex has been reset, and the new floor is materially
higher than the pre-2024 norm.¹²
for rare-earth oxides in US$/kg (Argus Non-Ferrous Markets,
free-on-board): lanthanum oxide US$1.00, cerium oxide US$1.71,
praseodymium oxide US$74, neodymium oxide US$73, neodymium-praseodymium
oxide US$69, samarium oxide US$2.82, europium oxide US$27 and gadolinium
oxide US$30.¹
in line with coverage from Reuters and specialist rare-earth press.
terbium moved above US$1,000 per kilogram during the tightest months.²
to any pre-2024 reference.
rose from US$1.21 per kilogram in 2024 to US$1.71 in 2025, a 41 percent
jump in a historically stable element where demand is dominated by
catalysts and polishing. That move suggests that the 2025 price strength
was not confined to magnet rare earths but spread across the broader
basket, partly as a knock-on from the supply-chain disruption.
between Chinese and non-Chinese rare-earth markets. Reuters-aligned
reporting found that buyers of permanent magnets produced outside China
were paying US$10-30 per kilogram more than equivalent Chinese-sourced
material, and European spot prices for some heavy rare earths reached up
to six times the levels seen in China during the tightest months.²
fully liquid global rare-earth market, regional price differences of
that magnitude would be arbitraged away within days by physical movement
of material. That arbitrage did not happen in 2025 because the Chinese
licensing system effectively stopped it — exporters needed case-by-case
approval, non-Chinese buyers had limited alternative sources, and the
supply-chain disruption translated directly into price dispersion.
was the April 2025 Chinese export-control package, which targeted
samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, scandium and
yttrium, along with related alloys, compounds, metals and oxides.¹ The
second was the October 2025 expansion, which added holmium, erbium,
thulium, europium and ytterbium — and included processing equipment and
technologies.¹
electric vehicles and wind turbines has been growing by double-digit
percentages annually since the early 2020s, and magnet rare earths
that the industry needs most. The combination of policy-driven supply
constraints and demand growth produced a classic tight-market pricing
response, with the elements most exposed to both forces moving the most.
the first half of 2025, buyers ran down existing stocks on the
assumption that the supply disruption would be temporary. When the
globally shifted to building strategic inventory — and the resulting
simultaneous buying wave in the second half of the year amplified the
price move beyond what the underlying supply-demand fundamentals alone
would have implied.
long focused on rare-earth magnet markets, projects that global
undersupply of dysprosium and terbium oxides will rise to 1,800 and 450
tonnes per year respectively by 2040 — amounts roughly equal to current
annual global production of each oxide.³ Put differently: the world's
current heavy-rare-earth production is approximately half of what the
permanent-magnet industry will need by 2040 on Adamas's base-case demand
scenario.
from Brazilian ionic-clay projects, from U.S. initiatives like MP
the price pressure visible in 2025 is unlikely to ease structurally. The
2030s normal looks like.
environment has been a windfall. Serra Verde's mixed concentrate sold
into international markets at prices significantly above the assumptions
that underpinned the project's original feasibility study, and the
company's ability to ramp toward 6,500 tonnes per year by end-2027 has
been made materially easier by the improved revenue per tonne.
For producers in development, the pricing signal accelerates decisions.
project IRRs and makes capital-raising easier. For Western refining and
magnet-manufacturing capacity — MP Materials, Neo Performance Materials,
similarly improve.
manufacturers and electronics producers face structurally higher input
costs for rare-earth components. The engineering response has included
higher-intensity magnet designs, partial substitution toward
lower-rare-earth-content motor configurations, and investment in
rare-earth-free motor technology — but none of these fully eliminate
exposure to the pricing of magnet rare earths.
inventory policies. Several major European and Japanese OEMs moved to
multi-year offtake agreements with non-Chinese producers during 2025,
absorbing higher per-kilogram prices in return for guaranteed supply.
into the next several years, even if spot prices moderate.
policy, non-Chinese supply growth, and permanent-magnet demand. The most
plausible scenario is that dysprosium stays above US$150 per kilogram,
terbium above US$600, and neodymium-praseodymium oxide in the US$60-80
range — figures materially above the 2020-202