Rare earths are currently in a supply/demand imbalance. To meet strong global demand, a new mine with production of 20,000t REO/yr is required every year from 2020 to 2025. China is forecast to be a net importer of rare earths by 2025 and is acquiring projects outside of China.43lo;

Rare earth materialslist

Rare earth elements are chemical elements including yttrium and the 15 lanthanide elements (lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, promethium, samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium, and lutetium).

Rare earthelements periodic table

This future-facing commodity group could exhibit an important parallel growth path to prevailing trends of increasing adoption of technology integration at home and within and between businesses (‘Internet of Things, IoT), and the overall maturing adoption of coupled Artificial Intelligence (AI) and IoT, or Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT). The AIoT theme drives toward the advancement to smart cities, industrial automation, healthcare (cobots), smart home and building automation, and automation of transportation, agriculture, and energy. This new technology paradigm requires radical heightened device integration and interconnectedness and a concurrent more from centralized to edge processing.

Rare earth oxides such as neodymium and praseodymium are expected to grow in demand due to their use in technologies such as high-strength magnets, aircraft engines, various industrial and electronic applications, and specialty glass as well as green technologies including wind turbines and electric vehicles (including cars, heavy vehicles, 2- and 3-wheeled automobiles).

Through its Nechalacho project in Canada, Vital Metals aims towards advancing the project toward development to enable and grow a North American rare earths supply chain.

The rare earth elements are all metals, and have many similar properties, and that often causes them to be found together in geologic deposits. They are also referred to as “rare earth oxides” because many of them are typically sold as oxide compounds.