Highlights

• Turkey's Beylikova rare earth deposit contains 694 million tons of ore, but the complex, low-grade polymetallic system faces major processing challenges without proven separation technology—the critical step China dominates.
• Eti Maden's 1,200-ton pilot plant produces mixed concentrate, not separated oxides; scaling plans to 570,000 tons by 2027 remain aspirational without solving midstream separation and magnet-grade refinement.
• Turkey's rare earth ambitions underscore a key investor lesson: geological abundance doesn't equal supply security—dominance requires control of separation, metals, and magnets, not just ore.

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A report circulated by Nordic Monitor (opens in a new tab) and amplified across regional media casts Turkey as a rising rare earth contender stalled by foreign technology controls.  The core facts are solid. Turkey does host a very large, complex rare earth–bearing deposit in Beylikova, Eskişehir, anchored by state-owned Eti Maden (opens in a new tab) as Rare Earth Exchanges™ has reported.  Exploration totals—hundreds of drill holes, tens of thousands of samples, and an estimated 694 million tons of ore—are not in dispute. What matters for investors, however, is what kind of ore this is and what comes next.

Beylikova is not a clean bastnäsite or monazite story. It is a polymetallic, low-grade system intertwined with barite, fluorite, and thorium. That complexity raises costs, regulatory hurdles, and—most critically—processing risk.

See Rare Earth Exchanges’ “_Turkey’s Rare Earth Ambition—Promise and Projection._”

Pilot Plants Are Not Supply Chains

Turkey’s 1,200-ton-per-year pilot plant produces a mixed rare earth concentrate. That is an early milestone, not a commercial breakthrough. The hardest, most valuable step—individual oxide separation—remains unresolved. This is where the recent account is most accurate: separation chemistry, solvent extraction cascades, and magnet-grade refinement are closely guarded capabilities dominated by China and a small ex-China club (e.g. Lynas Rare Earths, MP Materials).

Plans to scale Beylikova to 570,000 tons of ore per year by 2027 should be read as aspirational engineering timelines, not bankable supply. Without proven separation, metal-making, and magnet integration, tonnage targets are political signals, not market ones.

Sovereignty Talk Meets Physics

Yes, Ankara’s insistence on “national control” over rare earths, echoed by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar, raises the level of interest. That rhetoric resonates domestically but collides with reality. Rare earth supply chains are not plug-and-play. Technology transfer is slow,conditional, and often incomplete—even amongallies.

Opposition claims that Turkey is preparing to “hand over” its rare earths to the United States appear overstated and political. No binding offtake or technology agreements are disclosed. At the same time, the government’s narrative understates how dependent Turkey remains on external know-how if it wants magnets, not just ore.

Why This Matters for the Global REE Market

Turkey’s situation reinforces a core lesson investors should internalize: geological abundance does not equal supply security. China’s dominance persists not because of ore alone, but because it controls separation, metals, and magnets, all the result of deliberate industrial policy over the last couple of decades.  Turkey may eventually join the producer map—but only if it cracks midstream processing and downstream manufacturing.

Until then, Beylikova is best understood as a long-dated option, not an imminent disruptor.

Profile: Eti Maden

Eti Maden (Eti Maden İşletmeleri Genel Müdürlüğü) is a Turkish state-owned mining and chemicals company and the undisputed global leader in boron. Founded in 1935 as Etibank and restructured in 2004, Eti Maden is headquartered in Ankara and owned by the Turkey Wealth Fund (opens in a new tab). It holds a government monopoly over borate mining in Turkey, which containsroughly 73% of the world’s known boron reserves, giving thecompany an estimated 60–61% share of the global boron market. Its core products include borax pentahydrate and decahydrate, boric acid, boron oxide, zinc borate, and ground colemanite, serving industrial markets ranging from glass and ceramics to agriculture and energy.

Eti Maden operates at a large industrial scale, employing around 6,000 people and producing more than 2.5 million tons of refined boron products annually across major facilities in Bandırma, Kırka, Emet, Bigadiç, and Kestelek. The company supplies over 10,000 customers in more than 100 countries across six continents.

Financially, it posted record revenue of approximately $1.32 billion in 2024, following reported 2023 revenues between roughly $1.0–1.8 billion depending on accounting scope, with operating income of ₺16.27 billion. Strategically, Eti Maden is leveraging its boron dominance to diversify into lithium recovery from boron-processing waste streams while shifting toward higher value-added boron products to reinforce Turkey’s position in advanced materials and energy-related supply chains.

Source: Nordic Monitor, Jan. 21, 2026