Despite export controls and curbs on some rare earth elements, China’s overall rare earth exports jumped by 23% in May compared to April, Chinese customs data showed on Monday.
The exports for May, the second month following Chinese restrictions imposed in early April, were at their highest monthly level in a year.
The data doesn’t distinguish among the various rare earth minerals, so it’s too early to say how much the export curbs hit the elements that are part of the restrictions. Details will be available later in June.
However, exports of magnets already showed a significant decline, rippling through supply chains globally. Chinese exports of magnets halved in April from a month earlier.
At the beginning of April, China, which dominates the global rare earth and critical minerals supply chain, announced it would curb its exports of dysprosium, gadolinium, scandium, terbium, samarium, yttrium, and lutetium. These so-called “heavy” and “medium” rare earth elements are mostly used in automotive applications, including rotors and motors and transmission in electric vehicles and hybrids, as well as in the defense industry in parts of jets, missiles, and drones.
Last week, Germany’s automotive industry group VDA joined other carmakers to sound the alarm that the recently introduced curbs and controls on China’s exports of rare earth elements and magnets could disrupt and even idle manufacturing lines.
“If the situation is not changed quickly, production delays and even production outages can no longer be ruled out,” Hildegard Mueller, head of VDA, told Reuters this week, in yet another warning from the automotive industry about the impact of China’s policy on the global automotive supply chains.
Last month, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation – which represents GM, Toyota, Volkswagen and other major car manufacturers – warned of production reductions and even shutdowns of assembly lines without access to magnets and rare earth minerals.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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