Châu Âu muốn tự chủ đất hiếm: Nhà máy nhỏ ở Pháp có đủ sức thay thế Trung Quốc?

• Một nhà máy tại La Rochelle, Pháp thuộc công ty Solvay (Bỉ), đang tinh chế hai nguyên tố đất hiếm là neodymium và praseodymium – nguyên liệu thiết yếu trong nam châm vĩnh cửu dùng cho ô tô điện, tua-bin gió và thiết bị quân sự.

• Kể từ tháng 4/2025, nhà máy hoạt động ở quy mô thử nghiệm, chỉ tăng sản lượng nếu có đủ khách hàng từ thị trường châu Âu. Công ty mới đầu tư vài triệu USD, nhưng có thể bỏ ra thêm 100 triệu euro (khoảng 117 triệu USD) để mở rộng nếu thị trường phản hồi tích cực.

• Solvay là một trong số ít doanh nghiệp châu Âu còn duy trì năng lực tinh chế đất hiếm kể từ khi ngành này bị chuyển sang Trung Quốc từ thập niên 1980–1990 vì lo ngại ô nhiễm môi trường.

• Hiện nay, 98% đất hiếm mà EU nhập khẩu đến từ Trung Quốc, trong khi Mỹ chỉ phụ thuộc khoảng 80%. Trung Quốc vẫn dẫn đầu toàn cầu về công nghệ khai thác, xử lý, nhân lực và lợi thế về quy định môi trường lỏng lẻo.

• Các biện pháp kiểm soát xuất khẩu đất hiếm mới của Trung Quốc (áp dụng từ tháng 4) khiến nhiều doanh nghiệp EU rơi vào thế bị động do quá trình xin giấy phép kéo dài, yêu cầu thông tin nhạy cảm và không đảm bảo ổn định cung ứng.

• Hiệp hội các nhà cung cấp ô tô EU cho biết đến cuối tháng 6/2025, chỉ khoảng 50% đơn xin giấy phép xuất khẩu được Trung Quốc phê duyệt.

• Trước rủi ro bị "vũ khí hóa" nguồn cung, EU đã ban hành Đạo luật nguyên liệu thô, đặt mục tiêu đến 2030: 10% được khai thác trong khối, 25% tái chế và 40% tinh luyện nội địa.

• Chủ tịch Ủy ban châu Âu Ursula von der Leyen đã trình bày một mẫu nam châm sản xuất tại Estonia tại hội nghị G7, như một tín hiệu chiến lược về khả năng phục hồi ngành đất hiếm của châu Âu.

• EU không có tham vọng hoàn toàn tự chủ mà đang hướng đến đa dạng hóa nguồn cung, kết hợp khai thác, tái chế và nhập khẩu từ các đối tác không phải Trung Quốc.

• Tuy nhiên, nhiều công ty vẫn bị chi phối bởi yếu tố giá thành. Lãnh đạo cấp cao có thể ưu tiên chiến lược chuỗi cung ứng, nhưng bộ phận thu mua vẫn xem giá là yếu tố then chốt. Điều này khiến việc đầu tư mở rộng vẫn bị trì hoãn.

• Các chuyên gia kỳ vọng tình hình gián đoạn hiện nay có thể là chất xúc tác khiến doanh nghiệp EU sẵn sàng trả giá cao hơn cho nguồn cung ổn định và gần hơn trong tương lai.

📌 EU nhập khẩu tới 98% đất hiếm từ Trung Quốc và đang bị ảnh hưởng nghiêm trọng bởi các hạn chế xuất khẩu từ tháng 4/2025. Nhà máy Solvay tại Pháp có thể cung cấp 30% nhu cầu nếu được đầu tư 117 triệu USD, nhưng quyết định phụ thuộc vào cam kết mua hàng từ nội khối. EU đặt mục tiêu đến 2030 sẽ tinh luyện 40% đất hiếm trong khối, nhưng thách thức lớn vẫn là chi phí cao, công nghệ lạc hậu và tư duy mua hàng thiên về giá rẻ.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/08/world/europe/eu-china-rare-earth-minerals-metals.html

Europe Needs Rare Earth Metals. Can a Factory in Seaside France Supply Them?
The continent wants to reduce the risks of depending so heavily on China for the valuable minerals. The question is how.

Listen to this article · 8:27 min Learn more
A worker in a hard hat stands on a walkway looking over an industrial plant.
A rare earth factory in La Rochelle, France, owned by the Belgium-based company Solvay. The plant produces crucial materials needed to produce modern cars, wind turbines and military equipment.Credit...Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times
Jeanna Smialek
By Jeanna Smialek
Reporting from Brussels and from La Rochelle, France
July 8, 2025, 5:00 a.m. ET
In a squat warehouse not far from the Atlantic shoreline in La Rochelle, France, sits a cluster of giant metal tanks topped by gently whirring motors.
They are a gamble on the future of European industry.
Since April, the tanks have been purifying two rare earth minerals: a hot pink solution called neodymium and lime-green praseodymium. Both are turned into powder and then sold for use in permanent magnets — crucial materials in producing modern cars, wind turbines and military equipment.
For now, the quantities being produced are experimental and tiny. Solvay, the Belgium-based company that owns the plant, will increase production only if it can find customers. “We are just here signaling that we are available to Europe,” said Philippe Kehren, Solvay’s chief executive officer.
Image
A tangle of pipes and tanks.
The plant in La Rochelle has long focused on rare earth minerals and has been operational since 1948. It will increase production if it can find customers.Credit...Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times
The company is an example of an unfolding trend. Europe is trying to get back into the rare earths business, but the barriers are towering, and whether it will succeed is uncertain.
Rare earth minerals are critical components to advanced technologies in industries including energy and transportation. Magnets made with rare earths are particularly powerful and resistant to heat, making them useful in small electric motors and other applications. Most of these 17 important elements — difficult and often dirty to mine and refine at scale — come from China, which has spent decades becoming the dominant producer.
Europe once had a substantial rare earth industry. The plant in La Rochelle, in operation since 1948, has long focused on the minerals. But in the 1980s and ’90s, Europe outsourced much of the pollution-heavy production to China.
Now, European policymakers have become painfully aware that Beijing has the continent in a chokehold.
In recent weeks, China has curbed global access to rare earths and to the permanent magnets they go into, part of its response to American tariffs and other global trade tensions. The limits have left European producers scrambling. While Europe was already working to shore up its supply of critical raw materials, some experts think the disruption could be the kick the continent needs to start diversifying in earnest.
Doing so is no easy task.
Image
Three glass flasks containing red liquid in a factory with tanks and pipes in the background.
The tanks in the factory have been purifying two rare earth minerals: a hot pink solution called neodymium and lime-green praseodymium. Both are turned into powder and then sold for use in permanent magnets.Credit...Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times
China has the technical knowledge, work force and scale to mine rare earths efficiently, and it has laxer environmental regulations. The combination makes it difficult if not impossible for European companies to rival Asian producers on cost.
“Europe understood that mining is a dirty business, so they outsourced it elsewhere,” said Alena Kudzko, a policy director at Globsec, a European research group. “And it became this snowball effect,” she added. “We made a choice decades ago, and now it would be very hard to reverse.”
Europe is even more dependent on China for the minerals than the United States is. About 98 percent of the bloc’s rare earth imports come from China, versus 80 percent for America.
“We are lagging behind — we are lagging behind China, we’re lagging behind the United States — in reviving our mining sector,” said Hildegard Bentele, a member of the European Parliament from Germany.
Editors’ Picks
Her Fevers Returned Every Day. Would Anything Stop Them?
My Brother and I Haven’t Spoken in 4 Years. Can We Reconcile?
How a Parasitic Bird With No Parents Learns What Species It Is
Policymakers have worried for years that China might weaponize its rare earth dominance. In 2010, China halted shipments to Japan for two months amid a diplomatic standoff, and in 2012, it placed broad export controls on rare earths.
Given that, China’s trading partners have been working to reduce their dependencies.
Image
Tubes crossing a brown pool with a ramshackle structure nearby on a hillside with trees.
A mine for rare earth metals near Longnan, in south-central China. The country has the technical knowledge, work force and scale to mine rare earths efficiently, and it has laxer environmental regulations.Credit...Keith Bradsher/The New York Times
In 2023, the European Union passed a law meant to help secure its future supply of critical raw materials. The bloc has announced dozens of projects as part of the plan, with an eye on mining and refining cobalt, copper, lithium and rare earths.
But Ms. Bentele, who helped to shepherd the raw materials act into law, said that while the recent response was fast by European standards, “of course, that’s not enough.”
Part of the problem, she pointed out, is that for European production to work, companies would need to decide that having a reliable, nearby supplier was more important than minimizing costs.
“If you, as a company, go with the risky partner, then you run the risk,” she noted.
It’s not clear that businesses will make the higher-cost choice. That’s why Solvay has invested only a few million dollars to churn out rare earths in small amounts. If there is enough demand from car manufacturers and others, the company could supply up to 30 percent of Europe’s needs. But that would require sinking 100 million euros, about $117 million, into scaling up production.
“If we don’t have many buyers, we’re not going to invest,” Mr. Kehren said.
The current disruption could be a boon for the company if it speeds up Europe’s diversification. Some industry experts think that China’s latest rare earth restrictions could be the spur for European businesses to speed up diversification.
Image
A worker in a hard hat and blue uniform walks across a roadway in the shadow of industrial structures.
At the Solvay plant in La Rochelle. For European production of rare earths to work, companies would need to decide that having a reliable, nearby supplier was more important than minimizing costs.Credit...Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times
Since early April, China has required foreign customers to have export licenses to buy rare earth minerals. But officials have been slow to process the licenses, which has created the potential for widespread shortages.
The European Association of Automotive Suppliers said that only about half of export license requests had been approved as of late June, an improvement from earlier in the month but still enough to disrupt industry and leave executives scrambling.
On the license applications, Chinese trade officials have also asked for details that many European companies see as sensitive business information, said Luisa Santos, deputy director general at the lobby group BusinessEurope.
And though China’s Ministry of Commerce said in May that a channel had been established to expedite rare earth licenses for E.U. companies, delays have persisted.
“We’re all very conscious of the problem,” Ms. Santos said of the rare earth dependency. “We have had a system that was based on efficiency, cost cutting, but now that’s changing.”
The European Union has been approving projects to try to jump-start rare earth supply in the bloc, and government support could help companies to at least start production. Solvay has already locked down support from France and is in talks with the wider bloc to find funding for any potential expansion.
Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, recently took a permanent magnet made at a new factory in Estonia to show to her colleagues at the Group of 7 meeting in Canada.
Image
World leaders gather on an outdoor stage with a mountainous, wooded backdrop.
Ursula von der Leyen, in a light-color jacket, with other world leaders at the Group of 7 meeting in Canada last month. At the summit, she showed her colleagues a permanent magnet made at a new plant in Estonia.Credit...Pool photo by Stefan Rousseau
“China is using this quasi monopoly not only as a bargaining chip, but also weaponizing it to undermine competitors in key industries,” she said. “Even if there are signals that China may loosen its restrictions, the threat remains.”
Europe is not looking to build a wholly homegrown industry. While the bloc is exploring mining and refining capacity within its own borders, it is also looking to secure supply from countries other than China. The point is to diversify.
Nor are European policymakers and firms bent on getting their rare earths from the ground. The bloc is also trying to recycle rare earths, which would pollute less. Under the critical raw materials act, the goal is to have 10 percent of Europe’s raw material needs mined, 25 percent recycled and 40 percent processed in Europe by 2030.
Because rebuilding a supply chain will take time, the problem in the near term is diplomatic. European officials are pushing China to improve access to rare earths, and the topic is expected to come up at a summit between Brussels and Beijing in late July.
For companies like Solvay, the question is whether today’s problems will remain in focus if the supply complications ease in the coming months and the need to source locally fades.
“At the C.E.O. level, yes, it’s strategic, but then, when the procurement teams come in, it’s still about price,” said Nils Poel, head of market affairs at the European Association of Automotive Suppliers.
But, he noted, that could be starting to change. “There’s a little more willingness, now, to pay a premium.”