Latest news with #rareearthmetals
New York Times
2 days ago
- Automotive
- New York Times
U.S. Dependence on China for Rare Earth Magnets Is Causing Shortages
Two decades ago, factories in Indiana that turned rare earth metals into magnets moved production to China — just as demand for the magnets was starting to soar for everything from cars and semiconductors to fighter jets and robots. The United States is now reckoning with the cost of losing that supply chain. The Chinese government abruptly halted exports of rare earth magnets to any country on April 4 as part of its trade war with the United States. American officials had expected that China would relax its restrictions on the magnets as part of the trade truce the two countries reached in mid-May. But on Friday, President Trump suggested that China had continued to limit access. Now, American and European companies are running out of the magnets. American automakers are the hardest hit, with executives warning that production at factories across the Midwest and South could be cut back in the coming days and weeks. Carmakers need the magnets for the electric motors that run brakes, steering and fuel injectors. The motors in a single luxury car seat, for example, use as many as 12 magnets. Factory robots depend on rare earth magnets, too. 'This is America's, and the world's, Achilles' heel, which China continuously exploits,' said Nazak Nikakhtar, who was the assistant secretary of commerce overseeing export controls during Mr. Trump's first term. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
National Post
25-05-2025
- Business
- National Post
The CEO of a Vancouver-based company has figured out how to collaborate with Trump
Article content America and China have tapped the brakes on a spiralling tariff war. But there are other points of fierce competition between these two nations that haven't abated — including the race for rare earth metals. In late March, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order to fast-track the mining of critical minerals in a new frontier, the deep sea, a move intended to give America a competitive edge over China. Article content Article content Article content And in an odd twist, it's a Vancouver-based corporation, The Metals Company, that's been lobbying power brokers in Washington to bypass multilateral United Nations conventions and set a unilateral pathway for commercial mining of deep sea minerals. The company has announced its U.S. subsidiary will apply for a U.S. mining permit to harvest mineral nodules lying 5,000 metres deep in the Clarion-Clipperton zone of the Pacific Ocean. Article content Article content Officials at the International Seabed Authority — the UN-backed regulator responsible for setting the rules for deep sea mining in international waters — aren't happy. Trump's decision to revive a 1980-era U.S. mining law that predates the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), a convention the U.S. has not signed or ratified, flies in the face of how the UN prefers to see things done. Article content With the stage set for a showdown between Trump's executive order and UN conventions, I'm curious to find out what Gerard Barron, the CEO of The Metals Company, has to say. Article content Gerard's in Sydney, Australia, when we connect. The public company's first quarter results for 2025 have just been released; The Metals Company shares jumped nearly 83 per cent in April, and the stock is up 180 per cent in 2025. To say Gerard is bullish would be an understatement. With a trillion dollars worth of metals sitting on the seabed floor in their licence areas, Gerard declares, the company should be worth far more than a couple of billion, Canadian. Article content Article content The son of Aussie dairy farmers, Gerard is now a jet-setting entrepreneur splitting his time between London and Dubai, and more recently spending a lot of time lobbying in Washington, D.C., and some time at corporate offices in Toronto. Sporting a black T-shirt and frequently running a hand through his thick hair as he speaks, candidly and confidently, it's not difficult to imagine why this deep sea mining pioneer has been dubbed 'the Elon Musk of Australia.' Gerard bristles at the comparison: 'There is no equivalent to Elon Musk.' But he does confirm the company's vice-chair, Steve Jurvetson, is well connected to Musk.
Bloomberg
21-05-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
MP Materials Chair Says "Not Acceptable' to Rely on China for Rare Earths Supply Chain
MP Materials Chair Jim Litinsky talks mining - and refining - rare earth metals and what the reliance on the resource means for geopolitics and US national security. (Source: Bloomberg)
Reuters
21-05-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Rosneft takes control of Russia's largest rare earth deposit, registry shows
MOSCOW, May 21 (Reuters) - Russia's largest oil producer Rosneft ( opens new tab acquired Tomtor, country's largest rare earth metal deposit, a companies registry showed on Wednesday, after President Vladimir Putin last year urged that the development of the field be speeded up. Tomtor, located in the north of the Siberian region of Yakutia, is a key project in Russia's plans to boost output of the metals that are used in the defence industry and in making mobile phones and electric cars, to reduce reliance on imports from China. According to an official state registry of Russian companies, Rosneft secured complete control over the project's operator, Vostok Engineering, on May 20. Rosneft did not immediately reply to a request to comment. In November Putin accused the operator of Tomtor of delaying the deposit's development, suggesting it should either raise investment or seek help from third parties, including the state. Before the Ukraine conflict, Russia planned to invest $1.5 billion in rare earth minerals, striving to become the biggest producer after China by 2030. Other countries, including the United States, are also trying to curb their reliance on China, which controls 95% of the global production and supply of rare earth metals. Businessman Alexander Nesis, a former shareholder in Polymetal, a major producer of gold and silver, used to own a 75% stake in a firm called ThreeArc Mining, the operator of the project, through his IST group of companies. Polymetal used to own a 9.1% stake in ThreeArc Mining. Following the ownership change after the start of Russian military action in Ukraine, and subsequent Western sanctions on Russian businesses, the operator of the project ended up under control by IST's former manager Vladislav Resin, before Rosneft gained it.
