Brazil is emerging as a potentially important player in the global rare-earth minerals supply chain, as the United States and its allies search for alternatives to China’s dominant position.
The country’s Pela Ema mine, operated by Serra Verde in Goiás, offers a glimpse of both the opportunity—and the enormous challenge—of building a rare-earth supply chain outside China.
Around $5 billion in U.S.-backed investment and financing is being directed toward Pela Ema and related efforts, according to Bloomberg.
Brazil Has Major Rare-Earth Potential
Brazil holds roughly a quarter of the world’s estimated rare-earth reserves, yet it currently represents only a small share of global production.
That makes the country strategically attractive.
The Pela Ema deposit contains valuable rare earths including neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium and terbium. These materials are essential for permanent magnets used in electric vehicles, wind turbines, electronics, industrial equipment and defense technologies.
With demand for these technologies increasing, Brazil could become an important alternative source of critical minerals.
China Still Dominates Rare-Earth Processing
The biggest challenge isn’t simply finding or mining rare earths.
It’s processing them.
China has spent decades building an integrated industry covering rare-earth separation, refining, metals, alloys and permanent magnets. According to Bloomberg’s reporting, Chinese manufacturers produced approximately 94% of the world’s rare-earth permanent magnets in 2024.
That dominance means new mines outside China can still depend on Chinese companies to process their output.
Serra Verde itself initially entered long-term agreements with Chinese buyers capable of processing material from Pela Ema. Those arrangements are expected to expire by the end of 2026 as alternative processing capacity develops.
The U.S. Is Investing in Alternative Rare-Earth Supplies
Reducing dependence on China has become a strategic priority for Washington.
Serra Verde is also planning significant expansion, targeting approximately 6,400 metric tons of total rare-earth oxides annually by the end of 2027.
But opening mines is only one part of the solution.
A competitive non-Chinese supply chain also needs separation facilities, refineries, metal and alloy production, and factories capable of manufacturing high-performance magnets.
Brazil Could Become a Critical Minerals Powerhouse
Brazil has the natural resources required to become a major player in the global critical minerals market. The bigger opportunity is developing domestic processing and manufacturing so the country captures more value instead of simply exporting mineral concentrates.
Pela Ema demonstrates why breaking China’s rare-earth dominance won’t happen overnight.
The global race isn’t just about finding new rare-earth mines. It’s about building an entire mine-to-magnet supply chain capable of competing with an industrial ecosystem China has spent decades developing.
For Brazil, that challenge could also become a major economic opportunity.
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is no longer content with being merely the world’s largest cobalt supplier. Through a combination of export controls, strategic partnerships, and geopolitical repositioning, Kinshasa is transforming its role from resource provider to market maker.
The implications extend far beyond commodity markets. Congo’s evolving cobalt strategy is influencing global supply chains, altering China’s dominance in critical minerals, and creating new opportunities for Western investors seeking secure access to strategic resources.
From Price Taker to Price Setter
For years, Congo’s vast cobalt reserves fueled global battery production while the country remained vulnerable to commodity price cycles and foreign influence. That dynamic is changing.
Since imposing cobalt export restrictions in early 2025, Congo has steadily tightened control over the flow of the metal. A complete export ban eventually gave way to a quota system, but the impact on global supply has been profound.
China, historically the dominant buyer of Congolese cobalt, has seen imports collapse. Customs data show that Chinese imports of Congolese cobalt intermediates during the first four months of 2026 were only a fraction of the volumes recorded during the same period a year earlier.
The result has been a dramatic tightening of supply. Cobalt prices have more than doubled from pre-restriction levels, while unusual pricing patterns have emerged throughout the supply chain. Cobalt hydroxide—the primary form exported from Congo—has at times traded at prices equal to or even above refined cobalt metal, highlighting growing concerns about access to raw material.
What initially appeared to be a temporary supply disruption increasingly looks like a structural shift. Market participants are beginning to attach a premium to cobalt sourced from Congo, reflecting both scarcity and strategic importance.
Reducing Dependence on China
Perhaps the most significant aspect of Congo’s strategy is its attempt to diversify away from overwhelming dependence on Chinese operators.
China has spent decades building a dominant position in Congolese mining and refining. Chinese companies control many of the country’s largest cobalt and copper assets, while Chinese refiners process much of the world’s cobalt supply.
Now, however, Kinshasa appears determined to rebalance those relationships.
Recent developments suggest growing momentum behind Western investment initiatives. U.S.-based critical minerals platform Virtus Minerals recently acquired the copper and cobalt assets of Chemaf, positioning itself to revive operations that have faced years of uncertainty.
At the same time, Congo’s state-backed Entreprise Générale du Cobalt (EGC) has entered into agreements with commodity trader Trafigura and U.S. startup EVelution to support a proposed cobalt refinery in Arizona. Such projects could create direct links between Congolese mines and American manufacturing, reducing reliance on Chinese processing capacity.
These developments align closely with broader U.S. efforts to secure critical mineral supply chains amid intensifying competition with China.
Infrastructure Creates New Options
Infrastructure is playing a crucial role in Congo’s westward pivot.
The Lobito Atlantic Railway, backed by Western governments and investors, is emerging as a strategic alternative export route. Connecting the Congolese copper belt to Angola’s Atlantic port of Lobito, the corridor provides access to global markets without relying exclusively on transport networks historically aligned with Chinese interests.
The railway has become a symbol of a larger geopolitical contest over critical minerals. Control over extraction matters, but so does control over logistics, processing, and market access.
For Western investors, the corridor offers a practical pathway for moving minerals to Europe and North America. For Congo, it provides leverage and flexibility.
Solving the Artisanal Mining Challenge
Despite these opportunities, one major obstacle remains: artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM).
Artisanal miners produce a significant share of Congo’s cobalt, but the sector has long been associated with unsafe working conditions, child labor concerns, and informal trading networks. These issues have discouraged many Western buyers from sourcing Congolese cobalt directly.
The government understands that expanding access to Western markets requires stronger assurances around responsible sourcing.
To address this challenge, EGC has partnered with commodity trader Mercuria to establish what is being described as a “gold standard” framework for ethical artisanal cobalt production at the Kasulo mining site.
Success is far from guaranteed. Previous efforts to formalize the artisanal mining sector have delivered mixed results. However, creating a transparent and verifiable supply chain is essential if Congo hopes to attract Western customers seeking ethically sourced critical minerals.
The stakes are high. Without credible solutions, concerns over “blood cobalt” could continue limiting market access regardless of supply shortages.
Growing Leverage in a Tightening Market
Congo’s position is being strengthened by supply disruptions elsewhere.
Several competing sources of cobalt face challenges. Canadian producer Sherritt International’s refining operations have come under pressure from U.S. sanctions affecting its Cuban partnerships. Madagascar’s Ambatovy nickel-cobalt project suffered cyclone-related disruptions and is undergoing ownership changes. Meanwhile, Indonesian producers are grappling with tighter mining quotas and processing constraints.
These developments further increase Congo’s influence over a market where it already accounts for more than 70% of global mine production.
In other words, there are few realistic alternatives.
A New Strategic Role
The broader story is not simply about higher cobalt prices. It is about a country leveraging its resource dominance to reshape its geopolitical position.
By restricting exports, encouraging Western investment, developing alternative infrastructure, and attempting to formalize artisanal production, Congo is seeking greater control over both its resources and its future.
Whether the strategy succeeds remains uncertain. Balancing relationships with China while attracting Western capital will require careful diplomacy. Reforming the artisanal mining sector will be difficult. And sustaining investor confidence will depend on political stability and regulatory consistency.
Yet one thing is increasingly clear: Congo is no longer just supplying the global cobalt market. It is actively redefining it.
As demand for batteries, electric vehicles, defense technologies, and advanced electronics continues to grow, Congo’s decisions will have an outsized influence on the future of critical minerals. The country is emerging not merely as a producer of cobalt, but as one of the most important strategic players in the global race for resources.
This version is designed for a business, commodities, mining, or geopolitical affairs audience and is fully original rather than a rewrite of the Reuters text.
The United States has taken a significant step toward securing access to one of Africa’s most valuable untapped mineral resources through a preliminary agreement with Kenya involving the Mrima Hill rare earth and niobium deposit, estimated to be worth $62.4 billion (Sh9.7 trillion).
The proposed partnership represents a major geopolitical and economic development, as Washington strengthens its position in the global competition for critical minerals—an arena where China has long maintained a dominant influence.
A New Model for Resource Development
Announced by Kenyan President William Ruto during the G7 Summit, the agreement is centered on the mineral-rich Mrima Hill site in Kwale County. Unlike traditional extractive arrangements that focus on exporting raw materials, the deal is expected to require that strategic minerals be processed within Kenya before entering global markets.
This approach aligns with Kenya’s broader objective of increasing local value addition, creating jobs, and capturing a greater share of the economic benefits generated by its natural resources.
According to President Ruto, discussions with the United States are already at an advanced stage and could soon result in a formal agreement.
“We have agreed that the minerals will be processed in Kenya,” Ruto stated, emphasizing a shared commitment to local industrial development rather than the export of unprocessed resources.
Critical Minerals at the Center of Global Competition
The agreement comes amid an intensifying global race for access to critical minerals essential for clean energy technologies, advanced manufacturing, electronics, and defense systems.
Rare earth elements and niobium are key components in electric vehicles, renewable energy infrastructure, semiconductors, and high-performance industrial applications. As demand continues to grow, major powers are increasingly seeking secure and diversified supply chains.
China currently dominates much of the world’s mineral processing and refining capacity, particularly for rare earth elements, giving Beijing substantial influence over global supply chains. In response, the United States has been actively pursuing strategic partnerships across Africa and other resource-rich regions to reduce dependence on Chinese-controlled processing networks.
Africa’s Growing Leverage
Kenya’s negotiations reflect a broader trend across Africa, where governments are seeking greater control over how their resources are developed and monetized. Rather than exporting raw materials, many countries are now prioritizing domestic processing, industrialization, and local value retention.
Beyond Kenya, the United States has pursued similar partnerships in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, where access to cobalt and copper plays a crucial role in global battery production. Meanwhile, Russia has expanded its footprint in several African nations through mining and resource agreements linked to broader security and geopolitical interests.
A Shift in the Global Minerals Landscape
The proposed Kenya-US agreement signals more than just a commercial partnership. It highlights a changing global minerals landscape in which African nations are gaining greater bargaining power and demanding more equitable terms for resource development.
For Washington, securing access to rare earth supplies is an important step toward strengthening supply chain resilience and reducing reliance on China. For Kenya, the deal offers an opportunity to accelerate industrial growth while ensuring that more value from its natural resources remains within the country.
As competition for critical minerals intensifies, the Mrima Hill project could become a defining example of how Africa’s resource wealth is reshaping international economic and geopolitical relationships.
When the world talks about rare earths, the conversation usually centers on mines, supply chains, and geopolitics. Governments in Washington, Brussels, Canberra, and Tokyo are investing billions to reduce dependence on China for these critical minerals, which are essential for electric vehicles, wind turbines, advanced electronics, and military systems.
But while Western policymakers focus on extracting more rare earths from the ground, China has spent decades investing in something much harder to replicate: people.
In the northern Chinese city of Baotou, often called the country’s rare earth capital, a sophisticated ecosystem of universities, research institutes, laboratories, and industrial facilities has created a steady pipeline of highly specialized talent. This workforce may be China’s most durable advantage in the global competition for critical minerals.
Building a Rare Earth Talent Factory
Each year, hundreds of students enroll in specialized rare earth programs at institutions such as the Inner Mongolia University of Science and Technology. Unlike traditional mining degrees found elsewhere in the world, these programs focus specifically on the science, engineering, and processing of rare earth elements.
Graduates can move directly into nearby refining facilities, magnet manufacturing plants, or advanced research institutes. In Baotou, the distance between classroom, laboratory, and factory can be measured in kilometers rather than continents.
This tight integration between education and industry has produced a workforce capable of contributing immediately upon graduation. Industry veterans who have worked in both China and the West often note that Chinese graduates arrive with practical knowledge tailored to rare earth production, while workers elsewhere may require years of additional training.
Why Rare Earths Are So Difficult
The challenge isn’t finding rare earths. These elements are relatively abundant in the Earth’s crust.
The real difficulty lies in processing them.
Rare earth refining involves separating 17 chemically similar elements, a complex and costly process requiring advanced expertise in chemistry, metallurgy, and engineering. Producing materials such as neodymium and praseodymium—critical ingredients in high-performance magnets—requires intricate sequences of chemical treatments and separations.
Success depends not only on equipment and capital but also on decades of accumulated technical knowledge.
That expertise has become one of China’s most valuable strategic assets.
A Nationwide Research Network
China’s rare earth dominance is supported by an extensive research infrastructure.
The country hosts more than 40 dedicated rare earth laboratories and research institutes, many located near major mining regions. Universities, state-owned enterprises, and government-funded research centers collaborate closely, accelerating the transfer of new discoveries from laboratory experiments to industrial-scale production.
This model allows innovations to move rapidly through the development pipeline. Researchers develop new processing technologies, which can then be adopted by state-backed producers and scaled up for commercial use.
The result is a level of coordination that few countries have been able to match.
The West’s Lost Expertise
For much of the twentieth century, the United States and Europe led the world in rare earth processing.
That leadership gradually disappeared as environmental concerns, lower costs overseas, and shifting industrial priorities pushed much of the industry to China. As refining capacity moved abroad, educational programs and specialized expertise followed.
Today, relatively few Western universities offer dedicated rare earth programs. While institutions such as Ames National Laboratory in Iowa maintain strong research capabilities, the broader educational ecosystem remains limited compared with China’s.
The challenge is not simply building new mines or processing facilities. It is rebuilding a generation of scientists, engineers, and technicians with highly specialized skills.
That process can take decades.
The Geopolitical Stakes
Rare earths sit at the intersection of economic competitiveness and national security.
Advanced fighter aircraft, missile guidance systems, submarines, radar equipment, electric vehicles, and renewable energy technologies all depend on materials refined using rare earth processing expertise.
As tensions between China and the United States continue, Beijing’s control over more than 90% of global rare earth processing and magnet production gives it significant leverage in global supply chains.
Recent export restrictions and tighter controls on technology transfer suggest that China increasingly views rare earth expertise as a strategic resource that must be protected, much like advanced semiconductor technologies.
For policymakers in the West, this raises a difficult question: Can billions of dollars in investment recreate a talent ecosystem that China has spent decades building?
The Road Ahead
The race for rare earth independence is often portrayed as a battle over mines and factories. In reality, it is equally a competition for knowledge.
China’s dominance did not emerge overnight. It was built through long-term investment in education, research, industrial policy, and workforce development. Mines can be developed relatively quickly, and factories can be constructed within a few years. Building generations of specialists, however, requires patience and sustained commitment.
As countries seek to diversify supply chains and secure access to critical minerals, they may discover that the most valuable rare earth resource is not buried underground at all.
It is the expertise required to turn those minerals into the technologies that power the modern world.
OSLO, April 22 (Reuters) – Norway will take over planning for the Fen rare earth deposit – Europe’s largest – to speed up development after a resource upgrade nearly doubled its estimated size, the government said on Wednesday.
Fen was estimated last month to hold 15.9 million metric tons of rare earth oxide in indicated and inferred resources, 81% more than a 2024 estimate, the project’s developer said at the time.
Europe has no operating rare earth mines, and development of the southern Norway project would support the region’s push to reduce reliance on dominant producer China.
“The Fen field could be of major significance for Telemark, Norway and Europe’s supply security and competitiveness,” Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said in a statement. Telemark is the region where Fen is located.
“To ensure future access to critical minerals, it is important to increase production both in Norway and in other countries with which we cooperate in terms of security.”
About 19% of the oxides are neodymium and praseodymium (NdPr), key materials used in permanent magnets for electric vehicles, wind turbines, electronics and defence applications.
The government said it had stepped in at the request of the local authority, citing the risk of land-use disputes and the need to balance competing national interests.
As elsewhere in Europe, infrastructure projects in Norway – including onshore wind farms – have faced opposition from environmental and agricultural interests, delaying development.
Rare Earths Norway, which is developing the project, has said it expects production to start in late 2031, with output of 800 tons of NdPr by 2032, equivalent to about 5% of European Union demand.
Energy Fuels Inc. produced a so-called heavy rare earth element for the first time at its plant in Utah, advancing efforts to build a domestic supply of critical minerals used in electronics and defense technology.
The US company said on 24th March 2026 that it successfully recovered its first kilogram of terbium oxide at the White Mesa Mill as part of a pilot project to scale production at the facility, which predominantly processes uranium.
Terbium — a heavy rare earth element — is essential to building magnets that support consumer electronics, cars and military-grade weaponry. Heavy rare earths are less abundant and typically more valuable than “light” elements such as neodymium-praseodymium. Mining companies like Energy Fuels are pushing to scale production of these metals through facilities in the US as part of the United States effort to create a supply chain that circumvents China.
The Ministry of Heavy Industries is likely to call for bids under the Scheme to Promote Manufacturing of Sintered Rare Earth Permanent Magnets (REPM) Friday. Officials said the Rs 7,280 crore scheme will promote domestic manufacturing of 6,000 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) of magnets, strengthening supply chains for the automotive, defense, and aerospace sectors.
The Canadian province of Saskatchewan has vowed to compete with China in processing and production of rare earths and become the first North American commercial alternative source for the metals, used to make magnets for electric vehicles and wind turbines.
The Saskatchewan Research Council Rare Earth Processing facility is betting on demand for these magnets to jump in the next couple of years, driven by demand from original equipment manufacturers such as automakers.
The SRC Rare Earth processing facility has begun production on a commercial scale and expects to hit a production target of 40 tonnes of rare earth metals per month by the end of this year. And it will produce 400 tonnes of the NdPr metals per year, which is enough to produce 500,000 EVs, according to SRC. The facility has already tied up with potential clients in South Korea, Japan and the United States.
China has announced its closely watched export quota for rare earth minerals in the second half of this year, bringing the full-year total to 31,001 tons.
China produces more than 95% of the world’s rare earths, 17 elements critical to manufacturing everything from iPads to low-emission cars.
The Ministry of Commerce said China will allow exports of 15,500 tons of rare earths in the six months to December, according to a statement released late Monday.
Even as new measures to consolidate the rare earth industry in China are on the cards, prices for the 17 elements have jumped 10% over the past two weeks.
