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Rare Earth Minerals in India



Introduction

What are rare earths elements


 The term rare earth is derived from historical circumstances rather than descriptive reality. A mineral gadolnite found in ytterby, sweden is what these minerals were first extracted from. When these minerals were first isolated from oxides known as ‘earths’ at that time. This is where it got it name from. The nomenclature is a bit misleading as these minerals are far from scarce. All rare earth minerals except promethium are found in abundant quantities in the earth’s crust. For example cerium one of the rare earth minerals ranks 25th amongst elements when it comes to it’s crystal abundance placing it close to a lot of familiar industrial elements

 REE’s are a group of 17 elements showing similar chemical properties. REE’s consist of 15 lanthanides along with scandium and yttrium which span from atomic numbers 57 to 71 .

REE’s can be subdivided into further two groups namely- Light rare earth elements and heavy rare earth elements

Light earth elements cover atomic numbers 57 to 63(lanthanum to europium) and heavy rare earths cover atomic numbers 64 to 71(gadolinium to lutetium)

Rare earth elements get the term ‘rare’ not because they are rare to find in the earth’s crust but they are not found in concentrations high enough for economically viable mining projects. A lot of these minerals are also found with variable quantities of thorium and uranium though they are not a part of the rare earth list, which makes their economic viability all the more difficult.

Sources of REE’s

Primary sources for the commercial extraction of REE’s are basrnaesite(a flurorocarbonate mineral associated with carbonatites and igneous rock formations), xenotime, a yttrium phosphate commonly found in mineral sand deposits, lopartite and monazite which is often cited as a primary source of REE.

Beyond such primary sources REE can also be extracted as secondary outputs from phosphate rock processing and uranium leaching.

 

Physical and chemical properties

REE’s share a set of similar physical and chemical properties which are different from more commonly used industrial elements. High density, high melting points, strong thermal and electrical conductivity are some of their common characteristics that make them a highly demanded substance across the technologically driven sectors

Relevance of REE

The relevance of rare earth minerals is not only confined to sciences but also they have now become a topic of discussion in policy, deplomatic negotiations and national security for the biggest of nations

REEs and it’s related variables such as mining, extraction , processing and it’s exports have a verifiable relation with value added across all the three sectors of the economy. This has been backed by a econometric research conducted in the united states which provided quantitative answers to theoretical arguments.

REEs dont affect just one single industry but it has impacts across all the sectors of an economy and has and the impact is such that it can be detected through measures in national output. As we have already seen due to it’s growing demand and importance in some of the most important sectors of the economy the importance of REEs cannot be neglected and demand concious and deliberate policy decisions

There are two structural challenges of the REE sector that complicate it’s policy picture- first is the complicated and investment heavy extraction and refining of these minerals which generate significant environmental liabilities and secondly is the concentrated global supply chain. China has a disproportionate share of both production and consumption of the REEs. This has ignited a concern among the nations regarding their accessibility to the REE market which are now a key element to the functioning of there industries. Though efforts have been put up to develop alternative sources but developing a source at a meaningful level has proven to be a difficult task.

India’s position in the landscape of REE reserves and production is something which deserves more attention. There is a considerable gap in between the amount of reserves india has against what it actually produces. India holds the third largest reserves of REEs but contributes only about 1% in the total global production of REE. At a time where governments across the world are looking for new sources of REE supply india holds a potential strategic value in the REE production landscape. As understood earlier REEs not only present economic opportunities but it also grants a nation more geopolitical leverage. This gap in what india holds and produces is what motivated this report as we tend to study further why has india not been able to take advantage of it’s REE reserves and what can it do realise a more active role in the global REE supply


SECTION 2

How China Achieved Pre-eminence in Rare Earth Mining and Processing


China’s position in the rare earth elements (REE) sector grew over several decades. It did not happen quickly. Early policy choices, economic conditions and a willingness to invest in what others ignored all played a part in building what is now the world’s largest and most self-contained rare earth supply chain. No single cause explains this.

China’s hold on the sector did not come from luck. Decades of planning, a first-mover edge, and policies designed to protect domestic growth all shaped its position. Timing mattered, and so did the state’s willingness to back an industry that many governments elsewhere paid little attention to.

Rare earth deposits were found in China early in the twentieth century. Production expanded during the 1950s. By the 1970s, authorities had started treating these materials as a national priority, and state-backed institutions were set up to coordinate both research and industrial output across the country, giving China a running start in an industry that most other governments had not yet recognized as worth protecting. It entered the field before it became contested.

 

State investment went beyond mining. Processing and refinement require specialized equipment and know-how, and China chose to build these capacities rather than rely on others. Quality improved. Costs dropped. Other countries skipped these stages and found, later, that this left them dependent on Chinese processing even when they had their own ore deposits. The result was a vertically linked system that kept production, from ground to finished material, within national borders.

Policy backed all of this. In 1990, rare earths were classified as strategic minerals. Foreign firms faced restrictions, and where they were permitted to operate at all, joint ventures were typically required. Export quotas came next, then production caps, then taxes on outbound shipments. These tools gave Beijing direct control over how much material reached world markets at any given time, while ensuring that domestic manufacturers had cheaper and more reliable access than their foreign rivals.

Price was a problem for everyone else. Labour was cheap in China, and state support reduced costs further. Chinese producers could sell at prices that made it unviable for competitors abroad to keep going. Mines in the United States, Australia, and elsewhere shut down or cut back output. Once those alternatives disappeared from the market, China’s share of global supply climbed to levels that would have been hard to achieve through quality or speed alone.

The environmental picture in earlier decades was poor. Rules existed on paper but were applied inconsistently, and in some areas not at all. Illegal mining spread. The pollution from processing was often dumped rather than managed, which kept costs down but left lasting damage to farmland, waterways, and communities near extraction sites. By the time stricter rules began to take hold, China had already locked in its market position.

After 2010, the approach shifted. Illegal operations were shut down and hundreds of smaller producers were folded into a handful of large, mostly state-owned groups. Environmental rules tightened, though enforcement varied. The tax system for extracting these materials was overhauled, moving away from volume-based charges toward value-based ones that captured more of the economic benefit for the state. Major producers came out of this period with fewer competitors and a tighter grip on supply.

Where the material goes has also changed. Early on, exports made up a large share of output. That shifted as Chinese electronics, electric vehicle, and clean energy manufacturers expanded and began consuming more at home. Less left the country in raw or processed form. This kept more of the economic value inside China and deepened its hold on downstream global supply chains that increasingly depended on Chinese-made components.

China got here through accumulation. Early entry, years of state-directed investment, and regulatory tools that shaped both domestic output and international supply levels all built on each other. Cost pressure forced out foreign competitors before many governments had registered the risk. Later adjustments cleaned up some of the chaos that had built up, without loosening the underlying grip on the sector. The supply chain that now runs from extraction through processing to manufacturing was constructed over decades and would take at minimum that long for any other country to seriously replicate.


SECTION 3

REE RESERVES IN INDIA


India’s REE reserves are substantial by any measure. The total REE reserves in india are estimated to be around 8.52 million tonnes as of 2026 which are primarily concentrated in beach sand mineral deposits which are spread across the coastline. Monazite being the principal carrier mineral typically comprising 55-60 percent of rare earth oxide by composition and it accounts for dominant share of india’s recoverable REE reserves.

Monazite’s geographic distribution is pretty uneven across states with andhra pradesh holding about 3.72 million tonnes followed by tamil nadu at 2.46 million tonnes and odisha at 2.41 million tonnes, west bengal at 1.22 million tonnes, kerels contributes 1.9 million tonnes and west bengal 1.22 million tonnes bringing the total documented reserves to 11.93 million tonnes and updated latest figures have revised this figure upwards to 13.15 million tonnes incorporating newly identified deposits in gujarat and maharashtra.

 Other than monazite india bears small reserves of xenotime a secondary rare earth bearing phosphate mineral. So far the reverses identified for xenotime are around 2000 tonnes which are located in riverine deposits in Chhattisgarh and jharkand but these quantites arw too small to constitute a meaningful supply.

 

Comparative analysis of usa and india:


India’s reserve base is far higher than that of usa yet india’s contribution remains lower than that of usa . Annual output figures for india  in 2025 are around 2900 and 3500 tonnes and that of usa are around 51000 tonnes

 

This production gap is because of the difference in the rare earth minerals found in both the countries. Usa hold reserves of bastnaesite deposits concentrated at mountain pass facility in california. Meanwhile india had monazite reserves which also carry radiological complications along with it which is not the case with the reserves found in usa. Monazite has thorium a radioactive substance as it’s co-occuring product

Because of thorium’s radioactivity it is legally placed in the restricted category in the indian law . The regulation of monazite is overseen by the department of atomic energy because of this the framework around monazite extraction is more of a nuclear material governance rather than just commercial mineral extraction . Separating the desired oxides from thorium also adds up to the cost and complexity  of a process that is already more demanding than bastnaesite refining. As a result we have is a structural bottleneck- geological abundance at one end and technical and regulatory architecture at one which has produced far less than satisfactory results.

CITATIONS AND REFERENCES

MINISTRY OF MINES, GOVERNMENT OF INDIA.(2020) INDIAN MINERALS YEARBOOK 2019

 

Andrews-Speed, P., & Hove, A. (2023). China's rare earths dominance and policy responses (OIES Paper: CE, No. 7). The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. https://hdl.handle.net/10419/280121

Cuadros-Muñoz, J.-R., Jimber-del-Río, J.-A., Sorhegui-Ortega, R., Zea-De la Torre, M., & Vergara-Romero, A. (2024). Contribution of rare earth elements is key to the economy of the future. Land, 13(8), 1220.  https://doi.org/10.3390/land13081220

Press Information Bureau. (n.d.). Monazite and rare earth elements in India. Government of India.

U.S. Geological Survey. (2026). Mineral commodity summaries 2026: Rare earths.

 
 
 

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