Europe

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Around 70% of rare earths mining, and 90% of refining, happens in China, as a result of years of support from the Chinese government.

Europe, like many other parts of the world, is trying to reduce its dependence on importing these key metals from China. The future of Solvay's plant will be critical to those ambitions.

"This is a market that is growing fast, and, also, there is a greater demand for shorter supply chains," says CEO Philippe Kehren [the CEO of Solvay, a French company that runs one of only two rare earths processing facilities in Europe].

The Covid pandemic and the war in Ukraine have made companies and politicians try to remove some of the vulnerabilities in their supply chains.

"When you have a material that is coming almost 100% from one specific location, if you are dependent on this, you want to diversify your sourcing. This is what we can offer," explains the boss of the Belgian chemicals giant.

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That is why the EU's Critical Raw Materials Act came into force last year. It sets targets for reducing dependence on imports for the extraction, processing and recycling of the most important substances by 2030.

Europe only has two rare earth processing facilities, one in Estonia and this one in western France. It is the only plant outside of China that can process all 17 different rare earths.

The increased investment in the facility comes as it is moving away from focusing on supplying rare earths for catalytic convertors, to instead focus on soaring demand for the magnets that are essential to electric car batteries, advanced electronics and defence systems.

For now the focus is on recycling rare earths that are already in Europe. "We think that we can probably produce 30% of the rare earths needed by Europe just by recycling end of life motors and other equipment," says Mr Kehren.

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The European Parliament wants the European Commission to do more to reduce that dependence on Chinese rare earths. It says Beijing's controls are "unjustified" and "intended to be coercive".

On a recent visit to Germany, China's foreign minister Wang Yi said it was his country's "sovereign right", as well as being "common practice", to control exports of goods that have both commercial as well as military uses.

That stance explains why securing access to raw materials has been at the heart of recent EU trade deals, such as the one it signed with Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay last year.

Western firms in the rare earths sector say they need more government support if they are going to catch-up with their Chinese rivals.

Rafael Moreno, the CEO of Australia's Viridis Mining, says this backing, both regulatory and financial, "is the key right now". His business is developing a vast rare earths mine in Brazil, which hopes to provide as much as 5% of the world's rare earths.

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One reason China has forged ahead of the rest of the world regarding rare earths is that it has been more willing to handle the radioactive pollution that can be caused by the mining and processing.

Solvay also has rare earth operations in China, and Mr Kehren says "there are solutions to do it in a very responsible way without polluting". He adds: "It costs a bit of money, so you need to be ready to pay a little bit more."

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