MP's Rescue; Lithium Battery Technology Added to China's Catalogue of Technologies Restricted from Export; SRC, St George, Solvay and the lot.

Rare Earth 17 July 2025 #179

Notes

China moves to degrade EV battery production abroad

On 5 January 2025 we reported MOFCOM’s solicitation of public opinion on the amendment of the “Catalogue of Technologies Prohibited and Restricted from Export from China”. The solicitation period ended on 1 February 2025.

On 15 July 2025 the amended catalogue has been implemented.

This affects investment plans of Chinese battery makers abroad, as the amendment seeks to selectively deny access to the latest lithium battery technology.

Read the details below in our Politics section.

DoD’s Rescue of MP

Mountain Pass:

• Proportionally more than 80% uneconomical lanthanum and cerium,

• a substandard proportional content of NdPr,

• and a magnet heavy rare earth content that the bastnaesite importers in China have given up on, because it is too small to allow for any commercially worthwhile recovery, if the content should be detectible at all.

In short, one of the most unfavourable compositions of a rare earth mine for current and future rare earth market requirements.

And now DoD, everyone & sundry and also Apple want to invest in it.

After the utter disappointment in Saudi Arabia this DoD deal was the last straw to prevent the MP from certain failure, its cash-cow China business with its so far main shareholder having gone missing in the trade war.

Commentators, drunk with excitement, are falling over each other to marvel at the MP Materials and the U.S. Department of Defense deal.

Is this “deal” perhaps what George Carlin once described as:

America’s leading industry, Americas most profitable business, is still the manufacture, distribution, packaging and marketing of bullsh*t.

High quality, Grade-A, prime-cut, pure American bullsh*t.

While MP’s management is undoubtedly among the core members of George Carlin’s leading American industry, the answer must be: Not at all.

Because something important has changed.

Thanks to China’s well-researched but not well thought-through, botched implementation of dual-use license controls for 7 rare earths, cost in rare earth business no longer matter. Domestic availability of physical, separated rare earths, rare earth metals and rare earth permanent magnets matters.

There is, however, an enormous gap between public perception and the contents of the company’s detailed disclosures. Disclosures, which apparently no-one ever reads.

There is work getting done at Mountain Pass. Is it futile?

You can find our more sober take on the “deal” in the Companies section below.

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China’s Mixed Reactions to the H20 Ban Lift, and Jensen Huang's Beijing Visit

Yesterday in Beijing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang officially announced that the U.S. government has approved H20 shipments to China, giving the market a much-needed signal. He also revealed that Nvidia will soon release a fully compliant RTX PRO GPU for China — widely believed to be the long-rumored 6000D. On the same day, AMD confirmed it had received approval from the U.S. Commerce Department to continue exporting its MI308 chips to China.

Beijing kept its response low-key, simply restating its usual stance against politicizing and weaponizing trade and tech, and warning against disruptions to global supply chains.

Some analysts believe this shift in U.S. policy is closely tied to rare earth negotiations, especially since Treasury Secretary Bessent and Commerce Secretary Lutnick both publicly acknowledged that H20’s approval was part of broader trade talks around rare earths.

TACOs, anyone?

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China rare earth exports hit highest level since 2009 in June, signaling increased demand amid regulated markets

China's rare earth exports rose to the highest level since 2009 in June, official figures showed, underscoring a global push to secure the supplies of the metals needed to make powerful magnets.

The industry has been thrown into turmoil since China, a major supplier of rare earths , began imposing export controls in early April amid an escalating trade dispute with the United States .

The export restrictions have particularly hit supplies of a product called "permanent magnets," which were not covered in the customs data released on Wednesday.

Hilarious to avoid talking about the rare earth permanent magnets exports. We’ll analyse the detailed data when they are released.

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//Politics

Announcement No. 28 of 2025 of the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Science and Technology on the Adjustment and Release of the Catalogue of Technologies Prohibited and Restricted from Export from China

[Issuing unit] Department of Trade in Services
[Issuing document number] Ministry of Commerce Announcement No. 28 of 2025
[Issuing date] July 15, 2025