Can Brazil become a major rare earths supplier?

Brazil sits atop a potential bonanza of rare earths that has sparked global interest , led by Washington, as demand surges for the increasingly vital minerals. But any windfall still appears a distant prospect as Latin America’s biggest economy currently mines only a marginal amount. Only China has greater reserves of the critical minerals which are essential to make everything from smartphones to electric vehicles and missiles. Despite their name, the 17 elements are not actually rare, but rather extremely complex to extract and the requisite capital and technology are in short supply in Brazil. So can the Latin American giant become a major supplier? How large are the reserves? Brazil has more than 20 million tons of rare earths, according to estimates by the US Geological Survey (USGS). It holds the second-largest reserves after China and ranks far ahead of India, the third-placed nation which has an estimated 6.9 million tons of the critical minerals. But Brazil exported only 20 tons in 2024, a tiny share of global production, which the USGS estimated at 390,000 tons that year. China accounts for around two-thirds of the total global production. Why is production so low? Rare earth elements are found in sands, clays or rocks alongside dozens of other compounds and must be separated through a costly process. “Between what we extract from the ground and the oxide (of rare earths), which would be 99.9 per cent pure, there are at least 400 industrial processes,” explained Pablo Cesario, president of the Brazilian Mining Institute (IBRAM), which represents the sector’s main companies. “We can do this at laboratory scale. What we do not have — and almost nobody in the world has — is this processing technology at industrial scale,” he added during a virtual press conference. Julio Nery, director of mining affairs at IBRAM, said the country needs infrastructure, technological research and a cheaper, more abundant energy supply to ramp...

Original source: Dawn Pakistan