Yttrium Costs 125 Times More in Europe Than China as Export Curbs Bite

Yttrium trades at roughly $1.15 million a ton in Europe against $9,144 in China — a 125-fold gap that has opened since Beijing clamped down on exports of the heavy rare earth. Argus Media assesses those prices, Bloomberg reported, and before the curbs the global price sat only marginally above China's domestic level.

The metal has jumped about nine-fold in a year, Nikkei Asia reported on Nov. 11, and Japanese companies now worry about burning through inventories with no resupply in sight. "People are now scrambling a bit for material," said Chi Hin Ling, head of metals pricing for Asia at Argus.

Why the truce didn't help

China this week extended its pause on the sweeping rare earth export controls it announced in October 2025, pushing the deadline to Jan. 10. Yttrium was never part of that truce. It sits among seven medium and heavy rare earths placed under a separate licensing regime in April 2025, and those rules stayed fully in force.

The licensing has throttled flows. China's total yttrium oxide exports run at about two-fifths of their 2023-2024 average, Bloomberg reported. Almost none has reached Japan this year. US shipments are down about 70% from pre-2025 levels. Chinese customs data show 4,000 kilograms of yttrium oxide arrived in Japan in September, against 51,000 kilograms a year earlier, AFP reported. The Financial Times reported on Oct. 20 that Japan was months from running out.

The squeeze goes beyond yttrium

Argus prices tell the same story across the critical-minerals complex. Buyers outside China pay:

• 125 times the Chinese price for yttrium (Europe)
• 20 times for dysprosium, used in high-performance magnets
• 12 times for gallium, a semiconductor feedstock
• 8 times for terbium

Yttrium coats the huge blades of gas-power and jet-engine turbines, protecting them from heat. It also serves a range of semiconductor industry uses and appears in missiles. The FT has reported that China's restrictions hit Japanese suppliers serving US manufacturers. That places the metal squarely in the supply chains of gas-fired power plants — including those being built to run data centers — plus defense and aviation.

Where new supply might come from

Alternatives remain years away. Virtually no mined yttrium sources exist outside China. Lynas Rare Earths won't start production at its Malaysian plant until 2028. USA Rare Earth said this week it delivered its first yttrium oxide samples, from a demonstration plant in Colorado, to an unnamed customer for testing, Metal Tech News reported. Aclara Resources, developing projects in Chile and Brazil, recently added high-purity yttrium oxide to its processing plans.

"Within the next year or two, really there is very limited ex-China supply which is going to be available," said David Merriman, research director at consultancy Project Blue. The Pentagon's planned critical-mineral reserve is already running short of rare earths.

What's on the table in Shenzhen

President Donald Trump is expected to meet Xi Jinping at the APEC summit in Shenzhen on Nov. 18-19. On a recent video call, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer pressed Vice Premier He Lifeng for "concrete actions" on the rare earth pledges China made at Busan in October 2025. US officials told the FT that China has fulfilled only about two-thirds of its commitments and hasn't raised supply as Washington expected; Beijing disputes that assessment.

Nobody knows how much yttrium actually sits in warehouses outside China, because stockpiles of critical minerals aren't disclosed. "We always think the market is quite thin," Ling said. "Then, all of a sudden, someone will be like: 'Oh hang on, actually I've got about 100 tons left in my warehouse, but I'm going to sell it to you for $1 million a ton.'"

With the April 2025 licensing regime untouched by diplomacy and ex-China production not scaling before 2028 at the earliest, the price gap looks set to hold until Shenzhen delivers a concrete change in licensing practice.