Infographic: The last 30 years of rare earths mining

Global mined rare earth supply in 2024 was six times higher than in 1994, according to an analysis by Benchmark’s Rare Earths Forecast and the United States Geological Survey.

Back then, China and the US constituted the majority of supply. However, repeated spills of toxic wastewater into the Mojave National Preserve from the Mountain Pass Mine – once the world’s largest – led to legal action in 1997 and the eventual closure of the mine in 2002, bringing to an end the US’s position as a key source of mined rare earths.

This, combined with state support for domestic mines, access to cheaper labour, and looser environmental regulations, paved the way for China to capture over 90% market share at the turn of century. China’s share of mine supply didn’t drop below 80% until 2017, when new mines in Australia and Myanmar began to eat into its dominance.

Mountain Pass restarted operations in 2017 under the ownership of the newly formed company MP Materials. In 2024 it reached an annual mined output of 45,000 tonnes of total rare earth oxide. This put the US back into the global supply landscape at a time when rare earth supply chains are increasingly at the heart of global geopolitics. In July this year, the US government entered into a landmark public-private partnership with MP Materials, marking its first direct equity investment in a domestic critical minerals project.

In 2024, China accounted for 70% of the world’s rare earths mining with the US and Myanmar in second and third place with 12% and 9% of supply, respectively.

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