China controls spike rare‑earth prices sixfold

China’s April 4, 2025 export controls on medium and heavy rare earths are still choking Western supply in 2026, especially for dysprosium and terbium. (mofcom.gov.cn) (spglobal.com) Those two metals are added to permanent magnets so electric-vehicle motors, wind turbines and military systems keep working at high temperatures. S&P Global said the bottleneck is hitting high-performance technologies first. (spglobal.com) China’s Ministry of Commerce and customs agency put samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, scandium and yttrium-related items under export control on April 4, 2025. Exporters now need licenses for covered metals, oxides, alloys, compounds and mixtures. (mofcom.gov.cn) (hklaw.com) The trade data now shows how tight that system has become. Tradium reported China shipped only 3 kilograms of terbium in March 2026, all to Australia, versus nearly 11 tonnes in March 2025 before the controls took effect. (tradium.com) Dysprosium moved differently but stayed volatile. Tradium said China exported 7,386 kilograms in March 2026 after no shipments in February, with South Korea the main destination and smaller volumes going to Portugal. (tradium.com) The squeeze is exposing how concentrated the market is. The International Energy Agency figures cited by S&P Global put China at 61% of mined supply and 91% of refining and processing capacity for key rare earths in 2024. (spglobal.com) That has turned recycling from a side business into a supply-chain hedge. Instead of waiting for new mines, companies are pulling rare earths back out of discarded motors, hard drives and factory scrap. (spglobal.com) (cleanenergy.ca) Ionic Technologies said on July 30, 2025 that it was ramping up dysprosium oxide and terbium oxide production at its Belfast plant after urgent requests from customers in the United States, Europe and Asia. The company said prices had tripled in the second quarter of 2025 as supply tightened. (announcements.asx.com.au) HyProMag, owned by Mkango, said on April 23, 2026 that its Birmingham recycling and manufacturing plant had produced 9.2 tonnes of recycled neodymium-iron-boron alloy powder, with 7.4 tonnes shipped to customers. Siemens has already used HyProMag recycled magnets in a SIMOTICS servomotor rotor shown at Hannover Messe 2026. (markets.ft.com) (mkango.ca) Cyclic Materials said in June 2025 it would invest $34 million in a Kingston, Ontario recycling center designed to process 500 tonnes of magnet-rich feedstock a year into mixed rare earth oxides. The company named neodymium, praseodymium, terbium and dysprosium among the materials it plans to recover. (cleanenergy.ca) The immediate result is not independence from China. It is a scramble to build enough recycled oxide, alloy powder and finished magnets in Europe and North America to keep factories running when export licenses tighten again. (spglobal.com) (mkango.ca)