EU member Sweden locates rare earth metals
And according to the European Commission, demand will increase fivefold by 2030 due to the digital and green transformation of the bloc’s economy.
Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton has warned that the EU’s ambition to become the first climate-neutral continent is at risk without secure and sustainable access to raw materials.
“Our dual green and digital transition will live or die by the performance of our supply chains,” he said. “Take China, with its quasi-monopoly on rare earths and permanent magnets and prices have risen 50-90% in the last year alone. Commodity supply has become a real geopolitical tool.”
The EU is also keen to learn from the past and reduce unilateral dependencies like the one it developed on Russia for oil and gas, and only started cutting ties recently after the war in Ukraine started with Moscow’s full-scale invasion on February 24. .
“This has to change,” Busch said as EU commissioners traveled to Kiruna to mark the start of Sweden’s six-month rotating EU presidency. “In the short term we need to diversify our trade, but in the long term we cannot rely only on trade agreements. Electrification, EU self-sufficiency and independence from Russia and China will start in the mine.”
LKAB – which also develops coal-free iron ore projects – said the rare earth deposits were found near the world’s largest underground iron ore mine it operates in Kiruna. Exploration will not start for several years even if permits are delivered very quickly.
– If we look at how other permit processes have worked in our industry, it will take at least 10-15 years before we can actually start mining and delivering raw materials to the market, says LKAB’s CEO Jan Moström. “We need to change the permitting processes to ensure increased mining of this type of raw material in Europe.”