MANUFACTURING
Lynas Is Building a Magnet Factory Next to Its Own Refinery. That's How China Did It.
Spring 1928. Dearborn, Michigan.
Henry Ford stood at the edge of something no one had ever built. The River Rouge Complex spread across 2,000 acres of flat Michigan earth. Iron ore went in one end. Finished cars rolled out the other.
Coal, rubber, glass, steel — all made on-site. Ford didn't buy parts from anyone. He made everything himself.
At its peak, Rouge employed over 100,000 workers. A new car came off the line every 49 seconds.
Everyone called him crazy. Then everyone copied him. Ford understood something that still holds true: whoever controls every step — raw material to finished product — sets the price for everyone else.
Last week, on the eastern coast of Malaysia, somebody started building the rare earth version of River Rouge.
Lynas Rare Earths — the biggest rare earth producer outside China — announced a strategic investment in South Korea's JS Link to build a permanent magnet factory in Gebeng, Malaysia. The factory will make 3,000 tons per year of NdFeB permanent magnets — the kind inside every EV motor, every wind turbine, and every guided missile on earth.
The location is the whole point. Gebeng is where Lynas already runs the largest rare earth refining plant outside China. The magnets will be made right next to the plant that refines the metals that go inside them. No shipping to China. Mine to magnet, one supply chain.
Lynas is investing about A$50 million for an approximately 4.58% equity stake in JS Link, a South Korean company building its first permanent magnet factory. Total development cost: about US$142 million. Construction starts later this year, with first magnets expected in late 2027. The factory will create 400 jobs.
That's only half the move. Lynas is also spending about $120 million to add heavy rare earth separation at the same site. When both projects are running, Gebeng will take rare earth concentrate and turn it into finished permanent magnets. That includes the high-heat grades that need dysprosium and terbium. No other company outside China can do that.
Malaysia is betting big on this. The government renewed Lynas's license for ten years in March and wants $3 billion in rare earth revenue by 2030. It's not just talk — Lynas already has 700 workers in Gebeng and refines more rare earth material there than anyone outside China. This week, the Rare Earth Exchanges structural momentum index — which tracks how fast the West is building real rare earth capacity — hit 6.1, its highest reading yet.
China didn't just find the rocks. They built the factories next to the rocks. That's how they got to 90%. Now Lynas is doing it too — and this time, the factory is already going up. The question is whether anyone else can move this fast.
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ALSO THIS WEEK
MINING
Energy Fuels Buys Century-Old German Magnet Maker for $1.9 Billion
Energy Fuels agreed to buy Vacuumschmelze — a German magnet company founded in 1923 — for $1.9 billion in cash and stock. The deal puts mining, refining, metal-making, and finished magnets under one company for the first time outside China. VAC is building a new magnet factory in Sumter, South Carolina for defense and auto buyers. Days before the deal, Energy Fuels landed a $725 million conditional loan from the US Office of Strategic Capital. That tells you where the real race is — in the factory, not the mine.
RECYCLING
UK Launches £6.5 Million Project to Pull Rare Earth Magnets from Dead EVs
A project called REACT-UK launched last week, a £6.5 million effort backed by £3.2 million in government funding from the UK Department for Business and Trade. Six partners led by HyProMag will build a system to recover NdFeB magnets from end-of-life electric and hybrid vehicles. The logic is simple: the rare earths inside today's scrapped EVs are exactly the ones needed to build tomorrow's new ones. The three-year project aims to prove that magnet recycling can work at commercial scale in the UK.
PRICES
China's Price Index Hits 272 — but Can You Actually Buy the Metal?
China's CREIA Rare Earth Price Index hit 272 on July 9, with heavy rare earths holding firm and NdPr ticking up. But Rare Earth Exchanges put it plainly: the story is not the price — it's whether you can buy the metal at all. Western buyers still can't get heavy rare earth oxides or metals in usable volumes. Only about 10% of global separation capacity sits outside China. The gap says it all: dysprosium oxide costs about $210 per kilogram inside China and as much as $930 outside.
No other Western platform can offer what we're building — a fully integrated supply chain from mine to finished magnet.
Troy Thacker, Managing Director, Vacuumschmelze (VAC)
June 23, 2026
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Ho
HOLMIUM
The Most Magnetic Element You've Never Heard Of
Holmium has the highest magnetic strength of any element in nature — stronger than iron, stronger than neodymium, stronger than anything on the periodic table. Scientists use it to create the most powerful magnetic fields on earth, and doctors use it in lasers that break apart kidney stones. The name comes from Holmia — the old Latin word for Stockholm. Holmium oxide costs about $84/kg inside China today, and the price is climbing — but there is almost no separation capacity for it anywhere else. As the magnet race heats up, heavy rare earths like holmium are the ones that matter most.
AROUND THE MARKET
Mitsubishi Electric Starts Recycling Rare Earths from Home Air Conditioners
Japan's first closed-loop rare earth recycling program is running. Mitsubishi Electric pulls neodymium magnets from old air conditioner compressors and sends them to Shin-Etsu Chemical for refining. The recycled material should cover 35% of Mitsubishi's rare earth needs for new AC units.
— BigGo Finance
Evolution Metals Signs Non-China Rare Earth Supply Deal for Magnet Production
Evolution Metals & Technologies (Nasdaq: EMAT) signed a deal with Japan's Senri Trading for non-China NdPr metal to feed its magnet line. The company is on track to reach 10,000 metric tons of annual magnet capacity by November.
— GlobeNewswire
DOE Awards $75 Million to Pull Rare Earths from Coal Waste
The Department of Energy picked five projects to test pulling rare earths from coal and coal-based waste as part of a $75 million program. The University of North Dakota will run a pilot at the Falkirk Mine in Underwood. Other winners include Peabody Energy and American Resources.
— Department of Energy
Jack Lifton Says Too Many People in Rare Earths Don't Know How Factories Work
In his latest column for InvestorIntel, Critical Minerals Institute co-chair Jack Lifton has a blunt take on the industry. Too much of the debate, he argues, comes from people who have never set foot inside a refining plant. The race isn't about finding ore anymore — it's about building the factory.
— InvestorIntel
