A governmental decision made halfway around the globe yesterday has brightened immeasurably the prospects that a San Bernardino County mining operation will recapture its former glory.
The unincorporated community of Mountain Pass in San Bernardino County’s extreme northeast corner is home to what was in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s 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 advanced components.
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, let alone defray the debt it had taken on in the modernization of the mine and purchasing 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 was Shenghe Resources, with an interest in 7.7 percent of the mine.
In recent years, the mine has again begun production, and is currently responsible for roughly 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, causing significant disruption to global supply chains for industries reliant on those materials. 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.
Yesterday, 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.
Foreign companies utilizing rare earths produced in Chinese-owned mines, whether those mines are in China or elsewhere, will now need to obtain a Chinese export license if the final product built by those companies contains one of the twelve rare earth materials comprising more than 0.1 percent – i.e., one one-thousandth – of the final product’s value.
That action has redoubled the determination to increase production at the Mountain Pass Mine.
“We cannot rely on the Chinese Communist Party to power our most critical technologies and defense systems,” said Congressman Young Kim, the chairwoman of the House East Asia and Pacific Subcommittee whose district includes part of San Bernardino County. She called “China’s move to restrict critical minerals supplies… a sucker punch to U.S. industries and a wake-up call to Washington.” She vowed to remain “laser focused on protecting our economy and national security by building secure, resilient supply chains that Xi Jinping can’t lay a finger on.”