

Rare earths
Overview
Rare earths or rare earth elements (REE) are crucial to modern society, driving innovation across automotives, electronics, renewable energy, healthcare, defence and aerospace, and as a catalyst in industrial and chemical processing.
As demand for highly engineered products continues to grow, manufacturers that rely on rare earths face a limited supply of marketable product outside a handful of Chinese producers.
Argus Rare Earths Analytics and Argus Non-Ferrous Markets address this unique challenge in the rare earths industry by delivering price data and forecasts through on-the-ground expertise and a proven methodology that supports long-term outlooks as well as supply and demand fundamentals.
Rare earths coverage
Argus produces more than 70 price assessments for the 17 rare earth elements, as well as delivering best-in-class data, news and analysis to support your decision making. In addition, the Argus Rare Earths Analytics service also provides market analysis and 10-year forecasts for supply, demand, prices and projects across key rare earths:
- Cerium prices
- Dysprosium prices
- Erbium prices
- Europium prices
- Gadolinium prices
- Lanthanum prices
- Mischmetal prices
- Neodymium prices
- Praseodymium prices
- Praseodymium-neodymium prices
- Samarium prices
- Terbium prices
- Yttrium prices
Latest rare earth news
Browse the latest market moving news on the global rare earth industry.
DeepSeek AI integration to boost long-term metal demand
DeepSeek AI integration to boost long-term metal demand
Beijing, 13 February (Argus) — Increasing integration of DeepSeek's artificial intelligence (AI) models in China is likely to boost long-term demand for metals used in AI infrastructures and products, according to market participants. China's three largest telecommunications companies — China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom — have integrated DeepSeek's open source models, and provided exclusive computing power solutions and supporting environments for the DeepSeek-R1 model to help release the performance of the model, the country's industry and information technology ministry said on 9 February. Other major Chinese technology firms including Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent have also announced integration of DeepSeek's models into their cloud platforms. This is likely to accelerate these companies' development of intelligent applications. The country's largest electric vehicle (EV) maker BYD, which sold around 4.2mn EVs last year in China, on 11 February announced plans to integrate software from DeepSeek into 21 of its EV models, enabling the automaker to offer advanced autonomous driving features on all of its 18 models priced above 100,000 yuan ($13,686). DeepSeek's models offer performance for a low price, with its training cost reportedly significantly lower than other large language models. It provides responses comparable to other contemporary large language models, such as OpenAI's GPT-4o. The roll-out of DeepSeek's models is expected to provide low-cost, high-efficiency intelligent services for small and medium-sized companies and individual users, reduce the threshold for the use of AI technology, and accelerate the inclusion of AI technology. Metals demand This development is also likely to boost long-term demand for metals, particularly copper, aluminum, tungsten, molybdenum, gallium, germanium, battery metals and rare earths. AI operations rely on a large number of servers and data centres, with copper widely used in power distribution, grounding and interconnection of the data centres. Global copper demand from data centres is projected to exceed 1mn t by 2026, according to industry estimates. Rapid development of the AI industry is also boosting copper demand in grid systems. Aluminum is used in some cooling and structural components of data centres. Demand for indium phosphide (inP) photonic integrated circuit (PiC) technology from the data centre industry is also growing rapidly, driven by the heavy computing workloads required to support AI. AI growth and data centre demand is also expected to increase the use of compound semiconductor materials including gallium nitride and gallium arsenide. Molybdenum and tungsten can be used to manufacture high-temperature components and electrode materials used in some high-end AI hardware equipment. Rare earth metals also have key applications in AI-related magnetic and optical materials. A faster development of AI products has the potential to increase demand for neodymium iron and boron (NdFeB) material used in special micro-motors and servo motors, rare earth polishing powder used in wafer devices and rare earth magnets used in audio products. Some main domestic smartphone manufacturers such as Huawei, Honor and Oppo have also integrated DeepSeek's services into their products. This is likely to accelerate the development and consumer adoption of AI smartphones. Earlier industry estimates showed that shipments of AI smartphones would rise to 550mn units globally in 2027, making up more than 40pc of total phone shipments. About 30pc of cobalt and 7pc of global lithium production is consumed in the consumer electronics industry. Challenges DeepSeek's development is facing challenges outside China. The DeepSeek application was removed from Italy's app store in January owing to alleged data security concerns. Australia has banned the use of DeepSeek's technology on all government devices. Japanese companies such as Toyota, Mitsubishi and SoftBank have banned the use of DeepSeek for "information security issues". Texas in February became the first US state to ban the use of DeepSeek on government equipment. But the western countries' anxiety about DeepSeek may spur the development of their own AI industries. US president Donald Trump said that DeepSeek was a "wake-up call" for the US technology industry. South Korea's acting president Choi Sang-moo views DeepSeek as a "new impact", planning to pour 34 trillion won ($23.5bn) into the development of the AI and semiconductor industries. Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2025. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.
China’s CNGR to end investment in nickel JV with Posco
China’s CNGR to end investment in nickel JV with Posco
Singapore, 12 February (Argus) — Major Chinese lithium-ion battery cathode active material (CAM) precursor manufacturer CNGR will terminate investment in a nickel refinery joint venture with South Korean multi-sector company Posco Holdings, it announced today. The joint venture, Posco CNGR Nickel Solution, will be liquidated after the termination. The decision is part of efforts to reduce investment risks and protect investors' interests in the face of a weak electric vehicle (EV) market. A slowdown in global EV demand has led to slower growth in battery installations in 2024 compared with a year earlier, South Korean market intelligence firm SNE Research reported. CNGR and Posco announced plans in June 2023 to build a production facility for nickel and lithium-ion battery precursors in Pohang, South Korea. The plant was intended to have a design capacity of 50,000 t/yr metal equivalent for nickel sulphate and 110,000 t/yr for lithium-ion battery precursors, which was expected to meet demand from 1.2mn units of EVs. Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2025. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.
Cyclone Zelia threatens Australian Fe, Li, Mn exports
Cyclone Zelia threatens Australian Fe, Li, Mn exports
Sydney, 12 February (Argus) — Cyclone Zelia off Western Australia's (WA) Pilbara coast is on track to make landfall on 13 February, threatening iron ore, lithium and manganese exports from the region. Australia's Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) expects the cyclone to develop into a relatively rare and extremely powerful category three system on 13 February, as it starts heading towards WA's mines. The Pilbara Ports Authority (PPA) will close Port Hedland — Australia's largest iron ore export hub — at 6pm local time (7am GMT) on 12 February, having started clearing ships out of its berths a day earlier. Port Walcott — a smaller export facility to the west of Port Hedland — is also emptying its berths, in preparation for the cyclone. Cyclone Zelia on 14 February will pass over a part of WA where Fortescue's Iron Bridge mine, Mineral Resources' Wodgina lithium mine, Pilbara Minerals' Pilgangoora lithium mine, and three of Atlas Iron's mines are located, according to BoM forecasts. The cyclone will then move south over Fortescue's Christmas Creek and Cloudbreak iron ore mines, the Roy Hill iron mine, and Consolidated Minerals' Woodie Woodie manganese mine early on 15 February, before losing energy and dissipating by the next morning. Cyclone Zelia is the third weather system to disrupt WA's ports this year. Cyclone Sean flooded parts of Port Dampier and forced PPA to close all of its export facilities for two days at the end of January. Ships subsequently started moving out of Port Walcott and Port Dampier over the first week of February because of Cyclone Tahlia, driving Rio Tinto's exports to their lowest point since at least January 2019 . But WA has experienced extreme weather events before. Cyclone Veronica shuttered three WA ports for nearly a week in March 2019 . Cyclone Ilsa in April 2023 also drove PPA to close Port Hedland for two days . The four main iron ore prices that Argus assesses have risen over the last month. Argus' Iron ore fines 62pc Fe (ICX) cfr Qingdao price rose to $105.80/t on 11 February, from $97.90/t on 13 January. By Avinash Govind Iron ore prices $/t Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2025. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.
Upstate Shredding pivots to aluminum in Pennsylvania
Upstate Shredding pivots to aluminum in Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh, 11 February (Argus) — Upstate Shredding-Weitsman Recycling is partnering with Canadian recycler Combined Metal Industries (CMI) to transition its New Castle, Pennsylvania, ferrous shredding facility to focus on aluminum. Upgrades will include modifications to the existing ferrous-focused shredder, as well as installation of a new pre-shredder and sorting and polishing equipment, company owner Adam Weitsman told Argus . Compass Metal Trading, the US trading division of CMI, will manage all commercial activities. This includes the purchase of all aluminum feedstock and the sales of all segregated aluminum shredded scrap grades into the aluminum sheet and extrusion markets. "With our knowledge of shredding on the production end and CMI's expertise on the commercial non-ferrous scrap buying and selling end, it was the perfect opportunity for us both," Weitsman said. The companies expect the new facility to be fully operational within the next six months. Owego, New York-based Upstate Shredding's decision to transition the New Castle shredder to aluminum scrap will help it focus on a more profitable market, given increased competition from regional mill-owned shredders for ferrous feedstock. The acquisition of shredders by US steel mills to strengthen their raw material supply chains has led to intense pricing battles for shredder feed in some regions. Mill-owned shredders have different cost and pricing structures than privately-owned operations because they can absorb higher feedstock costs, market participants said. "Competing against steel mill-owned shredders in that region was very challenging because their pricing structure would not allow any margins," Weitsman said. By Brad MacAulay Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2025. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.
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