Yttrium at $1.15 Million a Tonne: The Price Gap Driving Africa's Rare Earth Push

Yttrium sells for roughly $1.15 million per tonne in Europe — and about $9,144 per tonne inside China. That 126-to-1 spread, drawn from Argus Media pricing reported by Bloomberg, is the number hanging over the expected meeting between US President Trump and Chinese President Xi this month on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Shenzhen. Rare earth supply is on the agenda, and manufacturers outside China are paying attention for a simple reason: they're the ones absorbing the difference.

Why do the price gaps matter?

China's grip on rare earths isn't just about geology. It's about processing capacity, and pricing power follows it. Dysprosium trades about 20 times higher outside China than inside it; terbium runs roughly eight times dearer. Those three elements — yttrium, dysprosium, terbium — feed electronics, industrial turbines, electric vehicles and defence equipment.

Beijing proposed export restrictions over a year ago, tightening access for foreign manufacturers. On November 9 it offered partial relief, extending the suspension of additional restrictions until January 10, 2027. That extension covers five elements — holmium, erbium, thulium, europium and ytterbium — plus certain processing technologies and equipment.

Here's the catch. Controls introduced in April 2025 on seven other elements, including yttrium, dysprosium and terbium, stay in place. The minerals with the sharpest price pressures remain the ones under export control. The relief, in other words, is selective.

Is Africa the answer for Western buyers?

Washington is already spending on that bet. In August, Reuters reported the US International Development Finance Corporation committed $62.8 million to rare earth projects in Malawi, Angola, Madagascar and South Africa. South Africa's Phalaborwa project takes roughly $50 million of the total.

One caveat: none of the four projects had entered production at the time of the report. Investment committed is not supply delivered.

Nigeria is aiming one step up the value chain. A $400 million rare earth and critical metals processing plant is under development in Uke, Nasarawa State, built by Hasetins Commodities Limited. The company expects the facility to add 12,000 tonnes of annual processing capacity, lifting its total to 18,000 tonnes when fully operational. That's a processing number, not a mining number — a distinction African governments increasingly want to make.

Gabon has the largest ticket in the pipeline. The country is trying to revive its long-delayed Mabounié niobium and rare earth deposit through a proposed $2 billion development pairing Emirati-backed New Energy Metals with Chinese engineering group ENFI. The plan calls for several processing facilities inside Gabon rather than raw extraction and export. Construction is set to begin in 2027, though the project has yet to reach production.

What stands between deposits and supply chains?

Plenty. Mining projects take years to develop, and processing demands specialised technology, infrastructure, reliable power and substantial financing. Reuters reported that private investors remain hesitant to finance African rare earth projects, citing a higher risk profile and concerns that Chinese market intervention could undercut prices and project economics.

There's also a strategic tension African governments have to manage. They want US and other investment aimed at reducing dependence on China — but they also need new projects to build local industrial capacity rather than turning the continent into another raw-materials exporter. The money, and the leverage, sits in processing and manufacturing, not in the ground.

The Trump–Xi meeting could clarify where global rare earth trade heads next. Even a deal between the two, though, won't switch off the diversification push; the price gaps are simply too wide to ignore.

What to watch next: whether the November 9 suspension holds through the Shenzhen talks, whether the April 2025 controls on yttrium, dysprosium and terbium move at all, and whether any of the four DFC-backed African projects — or Gabon's $2 billion Mabounié revival — hits a production milestone before construction begins in 2027.

By Daniel Okafor