2026-05-18 · percent of rare-earth refining
China refines most rare earths
Magnets for EVs and wind turbines need neodymium. Processing concentrates in one country.
Electric cars and wind turbines spin on neodymium magnets — and neodymium is a rare earth that must be refined before use. Per 2026 USGS and IEA data, China refines roughly 85% of the world's rare earths; Asia and the Pacific, Africa, and the Americas split the rest. One country sits at the choke point of the clean-energy supply chain.
1 cell = 0.1 percent of rare-earth refining (0.1% of rare-earth separation) · 1,000 cells
Context
Figures come from the USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries and IEA critical-minerals assessments, which put China's rare-earth refining share at roughly 85–90%; this grid uses 85%. The rest of the world's capacity is thin: about 7.8% in Asia and the Pacific, 4.2% in Africa, and 3% in the Americas.
The rare earths are a group of 17 elements — scandium, yttrium, and the lanthanides — and, despite the name, they are relatively abundant: USGS notes cerium is the 25th most abundant common element in Earth's crust, at 60 parts per million. The bottleneck is processing, not geology.
Refined rare earths feed permanent magnets for electric-vehicle motors and wind turbines, alongside the wide range of other applications USGS catalogs. That is why a single country holding most refining capacity is treated as a supply-chain vulnerability for clean-energy manufacturing.
USGS / IEA critical minerals: China ~85–90% refining share.
Share and export
Credit this grid as Inagrid — https://inagrid.com/e/2026-05-18-rare-earth-china