Rare earth elements are found in monazite, a beach sand mineral. (Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

The availability of rare earth elements in the world is very skewed, its mining more so. Currently, China accounts for most of the global mining of rare earth minerals as well as their supply, leaving the rest of the world with a lot of catching up to do.

The US-led Minerals Security Partnership announced in June this year is a consorted effort to fill the gap in the supply of critical minerals. But it excludes most of the less-developed world, including India.

Recently reports said that New Delhi has raised concerns over its exclusion from the "ambitious" initiative to bolster the supply chain of critical minerals such as cobalt, nickel, lithium and well as 17 rare earth elements (REEs), and sought the Ministry of External Affairs intervention to woo the US. But does India need US support given as how it has the fifth largest reserves of rare earth oxides? We will explore that question through this article, but first, a little background on the rare earth metals.

Rare earth elements or rare earth metals are a group of 17 metallic elements and include scandium, yttrium and the lanthanides found at the bottom of the periodic table. They have similar characteristics and are categorised as light rare earth elements (lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, promethium, samarium, europium, and heavy rare earth elements (gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium, and lutetium). The latter are being produced in smaller amounts and traded at higher prices.

They are usually categorised as light rare earth elements and heavy rare earth elements with the latter being produced in smaller amounts (due to lesser concentration in the earth's crust) and traded at higher prices.

The American Geosciences Institute says REEs are used in over 200 products across a wide range of applications, especially high-tech consumer products such as smartphones, hard drives, electric and hybrid vehicles, flat-screen monitors and TVs, wind turbines, and air conditioners. REEs are also used in making aerospace and defence equipment such as electronic displays, guidance systems, lasers, and radar and sonar systems. REEs are also used to make computer chips and solar panels.

Announcing the formation of the Mineral Supply Chain, the US government had said in June that the demand for REEs and other critical minerals are "essential for clean energy and other technologies, is projected to expand significantly in the coming decades".

Currently, the group includes Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Commission.

The Minerals Security Partnership will help catalyse investment from governments and the private sector for strategic opportunities — across the full value chain — that adhere to the highest environmental, social, and governance standards, the US government had said in June.

Of late, the importance of REEs has grown due to the dominant use of neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) permanent magnets in electric vehicles. The world sees EVs as the key to solving the global vehicular emissions problem, one of six key sectors identified by the UNEP to limit the spike in global temperatures to an average of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. And China holds the key to the mines supplying minerals needed to make this possible.

The total world reserves of rare earth oxides are estimated at 120 million tonnes, of which China alone accounts for 44 million tonnes (37 per cent) followed by Vietnam and Brazil (18 per cent each) and Russia (10 per cent). China is also the top producer of rare-earth oxides estimated to be at 1.8 lakh tonnes in 2019, followed by Myanmar, Australia, the US, and Russia. India was placed in the sixth position but produced just 4,200 metric tonnes in 2019.

The US-China trade disputes have brought to light the leverage China has on the global supply chain of REEs and the world economy in general. Though China has not yet "imposed any export controls on rare earth minerals that target the US, it sees REEs as a "powerful weapon" against the US and the West, should they try to restrict its global ambitions and the relations worsen to a "war" level. It's in this backdrop that the Minerals Security Partnership has become even more important.

If the US is China's major roadblock to world dominance, India is China's main obstacle in Asia. And when it comes to REEs, the same leverage that Beijing has over Washington, also exists in the case of New Delhi. India is currently 100 per cent import-dependent when it comes to rare earth minerals. Worryingly, as of 2019-20, a large chunk of the imported rare earth minerals came from China followed by Hong Kong (also administered by China).

As per the Indian Minerals Yearbook 2020, an annual publication of the Indian Bureau of Mines, which reviews the state of minerals in India, monazite, a beach sand mineral, is the principal source of rare earths like cerium, lanthanum, neodymium, and yttrium in the country. Monazite is radioactive in nature due to the presence of thorium, a radioactive metal used to power nuclear reactors.

A group of minerals, Monazite, is found as a complex phosphate of thorium and Rare Earth minerals in the concentrations of 0.4 – 4.3 per cent in beach sand and inland placer deposits in India.

As per the latest data from the Atomic Minerals Department, India's monazite deposit is estimated to be around 12.47 million tonnes. There are 14 major deposits: one in Kerala (1.84 million tonnes), five each in Tamil Nadu (2.46 million tonnes) and Andhra Pradesh (3.69 million tonnes), and three in Odisha (3.06 million tonnes). West Bengal has 1.2 million tonnes of Monazite sand deposits, followed by Jharkhand (0.21 million tonnes), Maharashtra (0.004million tonnes) and Gujarat (0.003 million tonnes).

As per reports India is estimated to have 71 per cent of the world's total Monazite deposits. Besides India, monazite is mined in Madagascar as a byproduct of sand minerals and in Western Australia.

The private sector is allowed to mine all six types of beach sand minerals except monazite. The mandate to mine REEs in India has been given to Indian Rare Earth Limited, a mini Ratna undertaking of the Government of India under the Department of Atomic Energy and Kerala Minerals and Metals Limited, a Kerala State Government undertaking. Both the companies are actively engaged in mining and processing beach sand.

As per the Indian Bureau of Mine, the installed capacity of monazite (96 per cent pure) separation plant of IREL at Manavalakurichi in Tamil Nadu is 6,000 tonnes per year while that of KMML at Chavara in Kerala is 240 tonnes per year.

While India's exclusion from MSP is a setback, the Ministry of External Affairs has been reportedly asked to look into how India can find a place in the critical minerals alliance. Rare earth minerals were part of the fourth round of 2+2 talks between India and the US. But diplomacy may still take time. Adding the existing capacity to mine and refine rare earth minerals must take precedence. India has the fifth largest reserves of rare earth oxides. There is also a "high possibility of discovery of new deposits along its coastline and hard rock carbonatites that exist all over the peninsula".

Some positive steps have already been taken in this regard. As per the Indian Bureau of Mines, IREL is actively pursuing the setting up of greenfield operations in the Kanyakumari district of Tamil Nadu and Bramhagiri district of Odisha.

IREL has recently been given the mandate to explore similar deposits outside the country. Last month, the Australian government confirmed that it would commit $5.8 million to the three-year India-Australia Critical Minerals Investment Partnership. Even if India remains excluded from the US-led critical minerals alliance, there is nothing stopping the government from seeking bilateral agreements and MOUs with other nations. Also, after China, Brazil and Vietnam have the world's largest known reserves of REEs.

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