What this place is
Mountain Pass supplied most of the world's rare earths in the 1960s-80s, closed under environmental and price pressure, and reopened — the clearest single illustration of how supply chains move and how hard they are to move back.
What comes out
Rare Earths (all)
A family of seventeen metals that are not actually rare in the ground, but are hard to separate from each other…
Cerium
The most abundant rare earth — more common in the crust than copper — mostly used as a polishing powder and in…
Lanthanum
The first of the rare earths, used by the tonne in the catalysts that crack crude oil into petrol.
Neodymium
The rare earth at the heart of the strongest magnet ever made — the kind in headphones, hard drives, wind turbines…
Praseodymium
Neodymium's near-twin, so alike that magnet makers usually do not bother separating the two and sell them together as…
A “by-product” is a metal recovered because it happens to be in the same rock, not because anyone went looking for it. Its supply therefore follows the primary metal’s economics, not its own.
Who owns it
| Company | Role | Interest |
|---|---|---|
| MP Materials | Miner | Owner-operator |
As publicly reported by the operators. Ownership of large mines changes; verify against current company filings before relying on it.