Highlights

• The rare earth element supply chain operates through bespoke contracts with no standardized market, creating unique challenges in pricing and procurement.
• Strategic government-backed deals and international partnerships are emerging to develop resilient rare earth supply chains beyond Chinese dominance.
• Rare Earth Exchanges (REEx) aims to bring transparency to the industry by mapping contracts, tracking pricing, and creating a comprehensive market atlas.

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Every link in the rare earth element (REE) supply chain – from mining to magnets – is held together by bespoke contracts rather than any standardized market. Here, we mean variability in terms of lengths, pricing formulas, and exclusivity clauses. Unlike common commodities, REEs lack a futures exchange or transparent spot market; each deal is negotiated on a case-by-case basis. Rare Earth Exchanges (REEx) is developing an open platform to not only identify and rank players in the value chain, but also track pricing as well as map industry contracts, bringing much-needed transparency to this sector. Below, we survey the major contract types along the REE supply chain (with an ex-China focus), including examples from recent years across the United States, Europe, Japan, and other regions. This illustrates how the “ex-China” rare earth market is unfolding and how REEx’s effort to build an “atlas” of contracts can consolidate industry knowledge.

Upstream Offtake Agreements (Mine to Refinery/Trader)

Offtake agreements are the foundation for new rare earth projects outside China. In a mining offtake, a buyer commits to purchase a large portion (sometimes all) of a mine’s output (concentrate or carbonate) for a number of years. These deals secure a market for the producer and often enable project financing. For example, Peak Rare Earths (Tanzania) signed a 7-year contract with China’s Shenghe for 100% of its concentrate (with take-or-pay provisions). Similarly, Australia’s Lynas Rare Earths in 2010 received a $250 million loan/equity package from a Japanese consortium (JOGMEC/Sojitz) in exchange for supplying ~8,500 t/year of REO to Japan for 10 years – a deal that secured ~30% of Japan’s rare earth needs and helped Lynas build its mine and processing plant. Just recently the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) inked a large deal with MP Materials, America’s only rare earth element mining operation at scale.

Offtake contracts typically peg pricing to Chinese market indexes (since no liquid independent market exists). However, as explained below, this is starting to change. For instance, Arafura Rare Earths (Australia) recently inked a 5-year offtake with trader Traxys for 100–300 tonnes per year of NdPr oxide, with pricing benchmarked to the China ex-works NdPr price. Traxys will act as an intermediary, aggregating Arafura’s output and marketing it to magnet makers that can’t commit to long-term deals. Many such contracts use formula pricing (e.g., a percentage of published oxide prices minus processing costs) rather than fixed prices, and include clauses like “take-or-pay” (ensuring the miner gets paid even if the buyer doesn’t take the full volume). Offtakes can also be flexible: Northern Minerals (Australia) switched from a Chinese buyer to a German trader (Thyssenkrupp) in 2019 via a 100% offtake for its dysprosium-rich carbonate, allowing conversion to oxides later and no price caps – giving exposure to any upside in heavy REE prices.

Tolling and Processing Arrangements

In some cases, a miner lacking refining capability will arrange for an external processor to toll-treat their material for a fee. Outside China, this model is rare(due to few independent refineries), but it’s emerging as new partnerships form. A notable example is the Energy Fuels–Neo Performance deal linking the U.S. and Europe: Energy Fuels processes monazite ore in Utah into a mixed rare earth carbonate, then Neo Performance Materials ships that intermediate to its Silmet separation plant in Estonia for final processing (opens in a new tab). Under their 2021 supply agreement, Energy Fuels will send “all or a portion” of its rare earth carbonate to Neo’s plant, where Neo separates it into high-purity REOs for use in magnets. This effectively created a new supply chain from U.S. mine to European magnet materials, bridging a critical gap.

Similar arrangements are being explored elsewhere – for example, Vital Metals of Canada had an offtake to supply rare earth concentrate to Norway’s REEtec for separation (with REEtec in turn signing a purchase agreement with a German automaker, as discussed below). These multi-step contracts underscore how, in the absence of domestic full supply chains, companies are teaming up internationally to process rare earths.

Tolling contracts specify feed specifications, processing recovery, fees, and ownership of output. They allow junior miners to monetize production by leveraging an existing refinery. However, they require trust and often some equity partnership, since one party handles the other’s valuable material. As new refineries come online in Europe, North America, and Asia (ex-China), we may see more toll processing deals enabling a global distribution of rare earth separations. For now, the Energy Fuels–Neo deal is a prominent model of a cross-border processing partnership.

Downstream Supply: Deals with End-Users

Once separated, rare earth oxides or metals are produced, supply contracts connect refiners to magnet manufacturers, alloy producers, and even end-user OEMs. These resemble offtakes (multi-year, volume-based, price-indexed) but involve finished RE products needed for magnets and components as we have cited in previous articles.

In recent years, Western automakers and industrial firms – historically absent from rare earth procurement – have started striking such deals to secure supply outside China.

One landmark example is General Motors’ agreement with MP Materials (USA). In late 2021, GM entered a long-term supply deal under which MP Materials will supply U.S.-sourced and manufactured NdFeB alloy and magnets from its forthcoming Texas facility (opens in a new tab), using rare earth feed from its California mine. This multi-year deal (ramping up in 2023) makes GM the foundational customer for MP’s magnet output, ensuring GM’s EV motors have a domestic magnet supply.  In Europe, Schaeffler (opens in a new tab), a major German auto parts supplier, signed a five-year contract with Norway’s REEtec to purchase separated rare earth oxides starting in 2024 as reported (opens in a new tab) in Reuters.

This was reportedly the first European auto-sector rare earth sourcing deal within Europe. Schaeffler’s goal is to obtain magnet-grade oxides from a non-Chinese source (REEtec plans to source raw material from Vital Metals in Canada) and then work with partners to make magnets in Europe. These deals mirror the trend in battery materials, where automakers secure lithium or cobalt – now extending to magnet materials crucial for EVs and wind turbines.

Even wind power companies are in the mix: Siemens Gamesa (opens in a new tab), for instance, signed a 5-year contract for NdPr oxide with Arafura (Australia), for ~520 tpa to supply wind turbine magnets as we reported in REEx.

Likewise, South Korean automakers Hyundai and Kia collectively secured 1,500 tpa of NdPr oxide from Arafura under a 7-year agreement. By early 2025, Arafura had roughly 80% of its future NdPr output pre-sold to customers like those automakers, a wind OEM, and Traxys (the trader). The common thread in these contracts is that end-users (and their suppliers) are reaching upstream to lock in critical rare earth inputs. Pricing remains linked to Chinese benchmarks in most cases – for example, Arafura’s contract with Traxys explicitly pegs pricing to the prevailing NdPr oxide price in China. However, buyers appear willing to pay a premium for supply security and sustainability outside of China, as we have reported with the DoD and MP Materials deal: a 10-year price protection agreement was involved. To provide MP Materials protection from market volatility, DoD is guaranteeing a minimum price of $110 per kilogram for the company's neodymium-praseodymium oxide (NdPr) products, which is double the market price when announced in July 2025.

Strategic Partnerships and Government-Backed Deals

Because rare earths are strategic materials, some contracts go beyond buyer–seller dynamics into joint ventures, investments, and government-supported agreements. These aim to develop supply chains “from mine to magnet” domestically or among allied nations. A classic example is the Lynas–Japan alliance: in 2010, Japan’s state-backed fund JOGMEC (with trading house Sojitz) invested heavily in Lynas in return for a secure long-term supply of REEs, reducing Japan’s dependence on China. That alliance was pivotal after China’s 2010 export embargo – and it illustrated how financing is tied to offtake. Similarly, MP Materials (which operates the only large U.S. rare earth mine) had an exclusive offtake with China’s Shenghe Resources from 2017–2022, during which Shenghe provided upfront funding and in return took all of MP’s concentrate at a formula price tied to Chinese markets. These partnerships gave MP the cash to restart operations, while feeding China’s supply chain until the U.S. company built its own processing capacity.  Note that with the new MP Materials and DoD deal in July 2025, the Nevada-headquartered company will decouple from Shenghe Resources next year.

Due to the trade war crisis, today, Western governments are actively brokering and funding rare earth supply deals as part of industrial policy. In the United States, again, the DoD has stepped in with Defense Production Act authority and other tools. In 2022, DoD awarded Lynas a $120 million contract to build a heavy rare earth separation plant in Texas, covering the full construction cost in exchange for domestic capability. This followed a smaller DoD grant for Lynas’s light RE plant (a cost-shared project) and a $35 million award to MP Materials for a heavy RE processing facility at Mountain Pass.. More recently, in mid-2025, DoD and MP Materials struck a multi-billion-dollar deal that will even make DoD an equity stakeholder in MP and guarantee a floor price of $110/kg for key rare earth oxides (NdPr) – nearly double the going market price in China. By providing a price floor and offtake commitment, the U.S. government de-risks MP’s expansion into magnet manufacturing. These moves signal a proactive push to build an ex-China supply chain: they not only fund facilities but also effectively create long-term contracts for output (a form of price support and assured procurement).

Just today REEx reports in a strategic move that deepens ex-China supply chain resilience, Perth-based Iluka Resources (ASX: ILU) (opens in a new tab) inked a 15-year rare earth concentrate supply agreement with Lindian Resources (ASX: LIN (opens in a new tab)), tapping Malawi’s Kangankunde deposit (opens in a new tab) to feed its under-construction Eneabba refinery (opens in a new tab) in Western Australia.

Under the agreement, Lindian will supply 6,000 tonnes per annum of high-grade monazite concentrate—graded at 55% TREO—representing 10% Eneabba’s planned capacity. Eneabba is poised to become Australia’s first fully integrated refinery capable of separating both light and heavy rare earths, with commissioning slated for 2027 via a joint venture with the Australian government.

In 2023, Japan’s Sumitomo Corporation struck a deal with MP Materials to help market U.S.-produced rare earths in Japan, strengthening East-West supply links.

The UK and EU have provided grants to rare earth magnet startups and are exploring offtake arrangements through defense and automotive initiatives. Even resource-rich allies like Australia and Canada, along with finance partners, are forming joint ventures for processing; for example, Australia’s Pensana has MOUs with American and Japanese partners (ReElement and Toyota Tsusho) to develop supply chains from an Angolan mine to refining in the U.S. or India.

These MOUs outline terms for offtake (e.g., 20,000 tpa of mixed rare earth carbonate over 5 years) and collaboration on new refining capacity. While non-binding, they lay the groundwork for definitive contracts once projects advance.

In summary, strategic contracts – whether government-funded projects, JV agreements, or financing-backed offtakes – are catalyzing the rare earth industry outside China. They often span multiple stages of the chain (integrated “mine-to-magnet” deals) and involve creative terms (price floors, equity stakes, technology sharing) to align incentives. Rare Earth Exchanges will catalog these alongside standard commercial contracts to give a complete picture of the emerging ecosystem.

Toward a Transparent REE Market: Traders and Exchanges

Despite the flurry of contracts, the rare-earth supply chain remains opaque and fragmented. A little-known network of specialized traders and brokers has long operated in the shadows, connecting upstream producers to downstream users as we have reported in “The Hidden Hands of Rare Earth Trading.”

REEx research has identified a couple of dozen such players across North America, Europe, and Japan, ranging from giant commodity firms to niche metals boutiques. For instance, Traxys (Luxembourg-based) has become a key conduit for rare earth offtakes and financing, helping juniors like Arafura market their output as we cited above. Germany’s Thyssenkrupp likewise inked exclusive ten-year deals to market output from Africa’s Rainbow Rare Earths and Australia’s Northern Minerals. Japan’s trading houses (Sojitz, Sumitomo, Toyota Tsusho, etc.) act as agents funneling non-Chinese material to Japanese industry. In the U.S. and Canada, firms like Stanford Materials operate as brokers importing Chinese oxides and alloys for local end-users.

These intermediaries handle logistics, quality verification, and often financing or stockpiling – services that smooth out a volatile supply line. However, market transparency is limited: prices are typically quoted via private benchmarks (Asian Metal, Argus, etc.), and contract terms are seldom public. There is no centralized exchange for rare earths today, but momentum is building to change that. Price reporting agencies seek to stake claims in the rare earth element supply chain--like Argus Media recently launched REE price assessments for dozens of products.

Commodity exchanges and trading houses are considering futures or stockpiling programs as the market grows to an expected $30 billion by 2030. In fact, REEx and industry voices have even floated the idea of establishing a rare earths trading platform akin to the London Metal Exchange. The aim is to enable more open trading and hedging tools, which could eventually reduce the need for purely bespoke contracts.

REEx positions itself at the heart of this transformation. The REEx platform’s mission is to bring “transformational transparency” by reporting on supply chain asset news and information, pricing, contract structures, and industry data. By aggregating offtake news, original analyses, and even “chatter” from the industry via our REEx Forum (opens in a new tab), REEx starts to rank assets and standardize contract templates across the supply chain – essentially creating the atlas of rare earth contracts that today is missing.

Meaning we will publish example deal structures and terms, helping to create guidelines, with an aim of  accelerating the nascent ex-China market.

As John Parkinson (opens in a new tab), Chief Business Officer of REEx, put it, “the race is on to build the ‘LME or Goldman Sachs of rare earths’ – a transparent, well-capitalized trading system to support a non-Chinese supply chain.” This speaks of a future where rare earth deals might be done with greater liquidity and less opacity than today.

In conclusion, the rare earth element supply chain is secured by an array of contractual relationships: long-term offtakes to get mines financed, tolling agreements to process materials, multi-year supply deals to feed magnet production, and government-supported strategic partnerships to stand up new capacity. Each contract is a bespoke solution to link a historically disjointed pipeline. As the world (ex-China) races to build a resilient REE supply chain, mapping these agreements is essential. The REEx atlas of contracts will not only catalog the deals but also help market participants understand evolving norms and opportunities in this critical industry. By shining light on contract types, volumes, pricing mechanisms, and players, the goal is to move rare earths from an opaque niche to a more standardized, efficient market – where information is shared and the “hidden hands” of this supply chain become common knowledge.

Sources:

• Multiple discussions with industry insiders
• Rare Earth Exchanges – “The Hidden Hands of Rare Earth Trading” (Oct 2023) wordpress-1542803-6000058.cloudwaysapps.com
• Rare Earth Exchanges – “Cracking the Rare Earth Code: Contracts, Pricing...” (Mar 2024) wordpress-1542803-6000058.cloudwaysapps.com
• Mining.com/Reuters – “Australian rare earth stocks soar on MP Materials deal” (July 2025) mining.com (opens in a new tab)
• Argus Media – “Lynas secures DoD funds for US heavy rare earth plant” (June 2022) argusmedia.com (opens in a new tab)
• MP Materials Press Release – “GM and MP Materials Enter Long-Term Supply Agreement” (Dec 2021) mpmaterials.com (opens in a new tab)
• Reuters – “EV parts maker Schaeffler signs first European rare earth deal” (Apr 2022) reuters.com (opens in a new tab)
• Energy Fuels Press Release – “Launch of US-EU rare earth supply chain” (July 2021) prnewswire.com (opens in a new tab)
• Pensana Plc – “MOU withToyota Tsusho for Rare Earth Offtake” (June 2025) news.cision.com (opens in a new tab)
• Mining Indaba – “MoU to advance rare earth oxide supply chain partnership” (June 2025) miningindaba.com (opens in a new tab)
• Rare Earth Exchanges – “The Hidden Hands of Rare Earth Trading” (cont’d) wordpress-1542803-6000058.cloudwaysapps.com