91% of the World's Rare Earth Refining Runs Through One Country. This Week, That Country Gave Itself the Legal Right to Use It.

91% of the world's rare earth refining runs through a single country. This week, that country gave itself the legal right to use it.

China's overhauled Mineral Resources Law took effect on 15 June. Buried in it, Article 76 authorises countermeasures against nations that restrict China's mineral supply.

BMO's Helen Amos called it the most comprehensive overhaul of the country's mining regime since 1986.

The dominance is not new. USGS data has China producing around 270,000 tonnes of rare earth oxides in 2024, against roughly 60,000 tonnes from the entire rest of the world combined. About 90% of high-performance magnets are made there.

What changed is the posture. Pressure that used to arrive by announcement is now written into law.

We already know the playbook works.

After China restricted antimony in August 2024, exports fell about 97%, and prices roughly tripled within months. That is the template, applied to a metal most people outside the industry cannot name.

They treat these controls as episodic shocks, something to model after the announcement lands. The law reframes the whole thing: strategic minerals lists that update, licences granted shipment by shipment, countermeasure triggers that move with the politics.

So the binding constraint is not knowing China dominates — everyone knows that. The constraint is knowing, today, which of your assets, suppliers, offtake agreements, and portfolio holdings touch a controlled element, and what moved this morning.

That is an intelligence problem before it is a policy problem. The institutions that handle it well will be the ones that see their full exposure in real time, not the ones with the best quarterly memo.

When the strategic-minerals list changes overnight, would your risk process catch it that day, or that quarter?

Less searching. More strategising.™