Overseas Mines Face China's Delivered-Cost Test as Cheap Ore Fails to Become Executable Supply

Highlights

• High TREO grade can mask weak economic value if the deposit is dominated by low-value elements like cerium and lanthanum rather than magnet rare earths like NdPr, dysprosium, and terbium.
• Buyer payability terms vary significantly—a 2026 Critical Metals–Realloys contract shows 75% for NdPr, 80% for Dy and Tb, and only 35% for yttrium, illustrating that not every recovered element generates equal revenue.
• China controls roughly 97% of HREE oxide separation and 95% of metal refining, meaning a mine outside China can still be deeply dependent on Chinese processing infrastructure.
• Dysprosium oxide delivered into North America has traded at potentially several times the EXW China price in 2025–2026, showing that Western supply chains may command a strategic price premium.
• REEx outlines six investor questions: which elements are present, recovery rates, buyer payability, separation location, customer qualification status, and which regional price sets revenue.