Rare earth miners are turning to recycling to solve the chicken and egg problem
The Australian miner Lynas, which operates a processing facility in Malaysia, is the only company to have squared this circle so far. It has been a slow road to profitability, with sustained support from Japanese buyers willing to wait out successive market cycles in search of a secure and long-term solution to Chinese market dominance.
Another key barrier has been the chicken-or-egg issue. Funding for a rare earth project has proved extremely hard to secure without a reliable offtake. However, buyers are not interested in pursuing long-term supply relationships with companies that may not be around next year. Magnets are by far the biggest driver of rare earth demand projections. Neodymium and praseodymium magnets, often dosed with terbium or dysprosium, are used in electric-vehicle drive trains, wind-turbine generators, and a range of consumer applications, leaving the materials heavily in demand for the energy transition.
Developing magnet recycling capacity offers juniors a route into building relations with buyers, even as they work toward primary rare earth capacity. It also offers the prospect of improving product mix.
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