Madagascar mines 0.7% of rare earths. Processing happens abroad.

Rio Tinto describes QMM as a joint venture with the Malagasy government near Fort Dauphin. The operation produces ilmenite and zirsill, with monazite recovered alongside them before shipping through Port Ehoala to RTIT Quebec and other customers. 2 A country can therefore appear in a mine table while remaining absent from the separated-oxide market, which is exactly what has happened here.

The operating history is older than the latest trade estimate suggests. USGS dates the start of monazite recovery at Mandena to 2018, several years before the latest estimate. Its fact sheet puts concentrate production at roughly 21,000 tonnes in 2019. That material contained about 5,000 tonnes of rare-earth content. 3 The historical product estimate should stay in its own box because the corrected 2025 country number uses a different trade-based method.

The latest sector data from Madagascar's Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative run only through 2023, and the organisation still identifies weaknesses in mining-data transparency. 9 The lag matters because trade partners can see a shipment before the public can see a reconciled national production series. Every tonnage therefore keeps its source method beside it.

Madagascar is already a supplier of mined and partly processed material. Its current trade route still hands the expensive chemistry to somebody else.

What the numbers say

Harena's January 2026 preliminary study reports a resource under an industry-standard code containing about 606,000 tonnes of total rare-earth oxide. The study selects an annual feed case of 5 million tonnes. On that basis, the project forecasts roughly 4,000 tonnes of total rare-earth oxide product a year. 4 Its reported NdPr plus Dy/Tb output is about 1,700 tonnes annually, giving the project a magnet-material reason to exist beyond a large total-resource headline.

The preliminary study assigns US$142 million of pre-production capital to its selected case. US DFC later committed up to US$4.84 million for pilot work plus environmental studies. Reuters described the wider project at roughly US$150 million. 4 5 The DFC cheque pays for evidence before construction, leaving the much larger mine financing gap open.

Mining terms and conditions signed with the ministry in August formalise project obligations and clear the way for more pilot and environmental work. 6 An unfinished environmental and social process stands first; a final permit and investment decision must follow. Harena's mid-2028 target is possible only if those gates move without the delays that usually collect around first-of-kind clay projects.

Energy Fuels renamed Toliara as Vara Mada after the Malagasy government lifted the project's suspension in November 2024. The existing exploitation permit covers ilmenite and rutile, with zircon included as well. Monazite must be added before the rare-earth part of the business can proceed. 7 A fiscal and stability agreement is another live condition, which keeps an apparent restart from becoming a construction decision.

The company's 2026 feasibility case gives Vara Mada a 38-year modelled life. Its planning material points to monazite deliveries as early as the first quarter of 2029, subject to permits, full construction funding and formal approval to build. 8 That date belongs beside a dotted line rather than in the same colour as Mandena's operating shipments.

Energy Fuels intends to send Vara Mada monazite to the White Mesa Mill in Utah. 8 The arrangement could create a non-Chinese route and a long mine life in Madagascar, while local value addition still stops at mineral-sands recovery. A future fiscal agreement should be judged partly on whether it funds domestic skills or infrastructure around that gap.

The Financial Times reported allegations from more than 6,000 residents concerning environmental and radiological effects around QMM. QMM disputed the allegations and said it complied with applicable requirements. 10 Both positions should appear together because the dispute concerns an operating asset rather than a distant exploration camp.

Madagascar entered enhanced international transparency review after the military takeover of October 2025. The measure runs through 20 November 2026 under the published decision. 9 Investors tend to treat governance as a discount rate; residents encounter it as access to production data and a workable complaint process. That difference will shape how the next permits are received.

Ampasindava still needs an environmental and social review, while Vara Mada needs its monazite right and fiscal terms. 6 7 Those separate legal tracks involve different communities, so a national output forecast should be built project by project and reduced wherever a permit or consent gate remains uncleared.

The first honest 2030 forecast starts with permits and saleable output, then asks how many tonnes remain in Madagascar for further processing.

EarthRarest forecast rule