Shan State Clays (Mong Hsat–Mong Yun)

The leaching sites between the towns of Mong Hsat and Mong Yun, in eastern Shan State, Myanmar, are one area of Shan State rare earth mining. Reuters reported in June 2025, citing four sources, that the mines operate under the protection of the United Wa State Army (UWSA), which Reuters described as a China-backed militia (Reuters, June 2025). Patrick Meehan, a University of Manchester lecturer who studies Myanmar's rare earth industry, told Reuters the sites appeared to be the first significant facilities in the country outside the Kachin region (Reuters, June 2025).

What Reuters reported about the Shan State mines (June 2025)

Two residents of the area told Reuters in June 2025 that they had seen trucks carrying material from the mines toward the Chinese border, some 200 kilometers away. Two mine workers told Reuters that at least 100 people were working day-to-night shifts. The same two workers and two members of the Shan Human Rights Foundation said at least one mine was run by a Chinese company with Chinese-speaking managers (Reuters, June 2025).

Reuters could not independently identify who owns the mines. Leng Harn, a member of the Shan Human Rights Foundation, told Reuters that people could not move freely in or out of the area without ID cards issued by the UWSA. China's Ministry of Commerce, the UWSA and Myanmar's junta did not respond to Reuters' questions (Reuters, June 2025).

Reuters described the UWSA's role as protection. Two mine workers told Reuters that Chinese miners were opening the new deposits (Reuters, June 2025).

The sites are recent. In satellite imagery reviewed by Reuters, a clearing about 30 kilometers from the Thai border first appears in April 2023 and holds over a dozen leaching pools by February 2025. A second clearing, six kilometers away across the Kok River, appears in imagery from May 2024 (Reuters, June 2025).

A U.N. human rights office report covering June 2025 to May 2026 said satellite imagery showed rare earth mining sites across Shan State rising from 12 before Myanmar's 2021 coup to 85 (Reuters, August 2026; REEx, October 2026). That count covers the whole state; neither report says how many of those sites lie between Mong Hsat and Mong Yun.

What kind of deposit is mined in Shan State

The leaching pools point to ion-adsorption clay. The USGS calls leachate tanks like these diagnostic features of rare earth extraction from that deposit type and describes the deposit type as the dominant supply of heavy rare earth elements. A USGS data release maps such tanks in Myanmar's Shan and Kachin states from satellite imagery taken between 2010 and 2025 (USGS, September 2025). REEx has described such clays as the world's primary source of dysprosium and terbium (REEx, September 2025).

David Merriman of consultancy Project Blue, who reviewed satellite images for Reuters, said the Shan deposits "will have terbium and dysprosium in them" and that those would be the miners' main targets (Reuters, June 2025). The USGS notes that substituting dysprosium for a small portion of the neodymium in neodymium-iron-boron magnets improves high-temperature performance (USGS Professional Paper 1802-O). REEx has found no published resource estimate, grade or production figure for the Shan sites.

Why the Shan State mines matter for supply

Reuters reported that China relies heavily on Myanmar for rare earth metals and oxides. Chinese customs data cited by Reuters showed Myanmar supplying nearly half of China's rare earth metal and oxide imports in the first four months of 2025 (Reuters, June 2025). In September 2026, Myanmar supplied 70% of China's imports of unlisted rare earth oxides, according to customs data reported by Shanghai Metals Market (SMM, October 2026). Those figures, like the USGS estimate of 22,000 metric tons of Myanmar mine output in 2025, cover the whole country and do not separate Shan from Kachin (USGS, 2026).

REEx's June 2025 analysis judged the new Shan mines smaller than Kachin's but said they gave China breathing room (REEx, June 2025).

Shan State rare earth mining FAQ