Rare-earth diversification will rise in Western states

Significance

Japan and United States have markedly reduced their dependence on Chinese rare earths since the mid-2000s -- signposting the future of supply dynamics for critical minerals whose supply and processing is concentrated in China.

Impacts

• Businesses will become increasingly sensitive to the possibilities of disruption from single-source suppliers of critical materials.
• Calming such concerns, a US survey of rare-earth users found few disruptions, even though 75% of inputs were from single-source suppliers.
• Other minerals key to new technologies where extraction or processing is concentrated in China include lithium, cobalt and nickel.