Summarising 2025 performance for streatgic metals is pretty simple. Higher, and broadly so.
Across the basket, prices rose between 19% and 118% per kg, with an average gain of 59%. Seven of the nine metals were up more than 40%.
A little more interesting is perhaps the why. The standouts were hafnium, jumping 117.65% from $4,364.80/kg to $9,499.90/kg, and rhenium, which wasn’t far behind, up 91.50% to $4,760.50/kg.
These are the kinds of metals where substitution is hard. When aerospace, and defence demand is strong, it can move prices quickly. And because these markets are small, it doesn’t take much to tighten them.
On the magnet side, performance was also strong. EV and wind demand is still doing the heavy lifting. Add a bit of supply friction and you get a steady bid.
Neodymium rose 55.36% to $149.30/kg. Praseodymium gained 49.95% to $144.10/kg. Terbium added 42.03% to $1,983.40/kg. Dysprosium was up 28.55% to $453.90/kg.
G7 & Allies Meet to Reduce Dependence on Chinese Rare Earths
The G7, plus finance ministers from Australia, Mexico, South Korea and India, recently gathered in Washington to discuss rare earth strategy.
Not just the usual photo op, but a genuine “we’ve got a problem” meeting.
Although it’s fair to say the ideas aren’t exactly fully baked yet.
Germany’s finance minister, Lars Klingbeil, summed up the mood: “Neither complaining nor self-pity helps us, we have to become active.”
Right now, though, it still feels like we’re in the awareness phase. Making sure everyone is sufficiently alarmed.
It reminds me of my old job where I was a designated fire warden. The emergency services’ main advice was basically: create real urgency, otherwise everyone assumes it’s a drill and carries on making tea.
Early stage plans include new supply partnerships, boosting recycling initiatives, and (most interesting from an investor angle) floating the idea of a rare earth “price floor”.
We’ve already seen the US Department of Defence lean into this kind of approach via partnerships with MP Materials around NdPr and magnets. It reinforces what we already know. Mining, refining, compliance, equipment, and labour all cost more outside China. Building supply is possible. Building it cheaply is the hard part.
Klingbeil also stressed this shouldn’t become an anti-China coalition. Europe needs to move faster in its own right. Meanwhile, a month earlier, the EU floated the idea of mandating that European companies diversify away from Chinese rare earths. Not like Brussels to start considering regulatory overreach when industry moves too slowly. Basically the EU doing EU things.
In fairness, the commissioner’s line was along these lines: we’d prefer to gently encourage procurement teams to take diversification plans to their boards. But if that doesn’t work, Brussels may make part of the shift mandatory.
It’s also an admission of the scale of the dependency. The EU buys about 20,000 tonnes of permanent magnets a year, with roughly 17,000-18,000 tonnes coming from China.
Problems Facing India Demonstrate the Challenges Facing All
India has also announced a significant push into rare earth magnets. The government-approved scheme is worth ₹7,280 crore (roughly $816m) and targets 6,000 tonnes a year of integrated magnet capacity.
Instead of trying to rebuild every part of the rare earth value chain at once, India is going after magnets first. It’s one of the most pressing pressure points.
But the bigger message is that capital is only the opening play. Rare earths are not like building a normal factory line. The real barrier is know-how. Processing and separation are complex and expensive. Making magnets adds another layer of manufacturing precision. Qualification takes time too. Especially if you’re supplying automotive and aerospace customers.
Even if India mines more of its own material, it still needs the technical base, partnerships, and time to get consistent commercial output at scale. This is the part many countries are relearning the hard way.
China’s control is not just about who has the rocks. It’s about who has spent decades building processing, magnet capacity, workforce depth, and the economics to operate on thin margins. China’s “investment” is best understood as decades of continuous state backed capacity building, rather than one headline number you can point to.
While talking of India, I had the pleasure of attending a retail investor expo in Bengaluru in January. The level of knowledge and understanding of rare earth elements from other attendees was immediately evident.
If any new subscribers have joined from our time here, welcome. I look forward to building partnerships on the ground, and growing awareness that these materials aren’t just for corporates. Retail investors can play too.
Russell Gous
Head of Investor Relations
