China’s strategic business decision earlier this year to radically restrict the export of the rare earth element yttrium, making a substance necessary in the manufacture of a number of modern, high tech products hard to come by as global supplies of the scarce metal dwindle, is accelerating the comeback of the Mountain Pass Mine, located in the extreme northeast corner of San Bernardino County.
On April 4, 2025, China imposed export controls on scandium, yttrium, samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium and lutetium, causing significant disruption to global supply chains for industries reliant on those materials.
In the case of yttrium, it is an indispensable component in certain speciality alloys.
A specialty alloy is a metal mixture designed to have specific, enhanced properties, extending to superior strength, corrosion resistance, or heat tolerance generally unavailable in standard alloys. In the case of yttrium, the speciality alloys created from it have application in the aerospace industry, the production of renewable energy, in making semiconductors and in certain types of engines. Thin metal composed of yttrium alloys fashioned into turbine blades is able to function and maintain its integrity in high temperature environments. Yttrium is also a key component in coatings that shield against high temperatures.
Because of the Chinese export restrictions, a shortage in yttrium resulted in an escalation in its cost, whereupon the production of certain products have ground to or toward a halt.
On October 31, President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in Busan, South Korea, at which time Trump, placed into a position of weakness by the situation, had to gingerly inquire about China’s readiness to end, or at least reduce, the restrictions, so to restore the flow of the rare earth metals to many segments of U.S. and international industry. Jinping’s responses, while cordial, were less than encouraging, and a resolution of the supply chain hold-up was not arrived at. Meanwhile, certain specialized U.S. industries are bracing for an extended shutdown until an alternative source of rare earths can be established.
As a result, the resurrection of the Mountain Pass Mine, which has already begun, is about to accelerate.
In the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s, the Mountain Pass Mine, located some 15 miles southwest of the California/Nevada border along I-15 and about 15 miles east-northeast from Halloran on the I-15, was the world’s most productive rare earth element mine. Rare earth metals, also referred to as lanthanides, are a set of 17 minerals – specifically scandium, yttrium, lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, promethium, samarium, gadolinium, europium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, lutetium and ytterbium. They serve as niche ingredients in the components of high-tech devices, including mercury-vapor lamps, high-temperature superconductors, lasers, microwave filters, high refractive index glass, electrical vehicles, flint products, battery-electrodes, camera lenses, carbon arc lighting, didymium glass used in welding goggles, ceramic capacitors, nuclear batteries, specialized magnets, semi-conductors, red and blue phosphors, x-ray machines, infrared lasers and computer chips.
The mine was closed down in the 1990s because of environmental concerns. During its hiatus, the Chinese leapt into the breach and became the owners and operators of mines producing in excess of 80 percent of the world’s rare earth elements. In the same timeframe, over the last three decades, with scientific advancements, rare earths became more and more crucial to the economy as modern products increasingly utilized components containing lanthanides.
After the turn of the millennium, Greenwood Village, Colorado-based Molycorp, Inc acquired the mine and reopened it in 2012, for more than two years tapping into Mountain Pass’s rich deposits. Seeing that the United States was once again on an arc toward rare earth independence, Chinese companies, subsidized by the Communist Chinese government, increased the output of their mines and created a glut of rare earths on the world market, driving prices downward. By 2015, Molycorp was unable to sell its product at a price that matched or exceeded its production costs nor defray the interest let alone the principal on the debt it had taken on in the modernization of the mine and purchasing its accompanying processing equipment. Molycorp declared bankruptcy, and in July 2017, the mine and its equipment were acquired by a Chinese-led consortium.
The mine remained shuttered as the Chinese solidified their dominance of the worldwide rare earth production industry. Despite the consideration that the Mountain Pass Mine during this time was not producing a profit, in moves that were motivated, perhaps, as much or more by patriotic sentiment than mercenary intent, Chicago based JHL Capital Group and New York City-based QVT Financial and its chief executive officer, James Litinsky, in late 2017 became involved in the holding company controlling the mine property, which was redubbed MP Materials. By 2021, QVT, JHL and Litinsky emerged as the three primary shareholders in MP Materials, such that the primary Chinese shareholder in the mine, Shenghe Resources, had its interest in the enterprise reduced to 7.7 percent.
In recent years, the mine has again begun production, and is currently responsible for roughly 7-to-11 percent of the rare earth minerals being produced globally.
On April 4, 2025, China imposed export controls on scandium, yttrium, samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium and lutetium. In a reaction to that move, the U.S. Defense Department, since renamed the Department of War, in July acquired $400 million in MP Materials preferred stock, giving the Pentagon a 15 percent stake in the company. The acquisition was accompanied by an announcement that MP Materials would accelerate the production of rare earth metals and beef up the domestic supply chain, thereby reducing dependence on foreign sources.
Last month, on October 9, China’s Commerce Ministry intensified the measures taken in April by adding holmium, erbium, thulium, europium and ytterbium to the list of elements subject to export restrictions.
Under China’s rules for the export of rare earth minerals, exporters must endure a several-months long process of obtaining licensing from two separate ministries in Beijing, after which government officials will permit only relatively small quantities to be processed for shipment before they are released. China puts a priority on its domestic users of rare earths, such that any pending orders from Chinese companies that come in are filled first before any foreign requests for the substances that come in or any that have previously been registered.
As the issues relating to the availability of yttrium and other rare earth metals have not been resolved, with the reliable flow of the critical metals into the United States virtually discontinued, the Department of War and MP Materials have quietly accelerated improvements and expansion of the Mountain Pass mining facility, including processing facilities.
In recent years to the present, all yttrium being used in the United States came from and still comes from foreign sources, with China accounting for 93 percent of that total. The U.S. imported an estimated 470 tons of yttrium products in 2024, according to the United States Geological Survey.
The Mountain Pass Mine has significant yttrium reserves. Nevertheless, is until recently, yttrium was not directly mined there but yielded as a byproduct of its mining operations concentrating on neodymium and praseodymium. Any raw ore containing yttrium was previously sent out of the county for processing. At present, neither Mountain Pass nor any other processing plant in the United States has a commercial scale yttrium separating facility.
The Sentinel is informed that in conjunction with the Department of War, a crash program to construct such a facility is ongoing at Mountain Pass.
-Mark Gutglueck