Lula’s win locks in Brazil’s push to refine its own rare earths

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won Brazil’s presidential runoff on Sunday 25 October, beating Senator Flávio Bolsonaro with about 52% of the vote. His fourth term, starting 5 January 2027, keeps in place a critical minerals policy that raises a question for the rare earths market: who will process Brazil’s ore? Brazil holds the world’s second-largest rare earth reserves after China, and Benchmark forecasts mine output to almost triple by 2032 from 5,000 tonnes today. Yet there is no domestic refining until 2030 and only small volumes of light rare earths after that.