u/PacoMan1488

Spent way too long on this over the weekend but wanted to share because I kept seeing "China depends on Myanmar for heavy rare earths" repeated everywhere without anyone actually posting numbers.

So I went and pulled China's import data from UN Comtrade (it mirrors Chinese customs). Took a while to find the right code, the rare earth compounds Myanmar ships mostly move under HS 284690. If anyone knows a better series I'd genuinely like to hear it.

What the data shows:

2023: China imported about 72,000 tonnes of RE compounds from Myanmar, worth $1.44bn. Global Witness reckons that was ~98% of China's heavy rare earth oxide imports that year.

2024: 44,000 tonnes, down 38%.

And the monthly numbers show exactly why. Through spring 2024 it was running at 5,500-6,200 tonnes a month. Then the KIA (Kachin rebels) took the mining area around Panwa in October. October dropped to 2,800t, November 1,200t, December 726 tonnes. That's a near 90% collapse in three months. China only got it flowing again by negotiating with the rebels and paying what's reported as a ~$4,800/tonne tax to them. Even then 2025 volumes look like roughly half the 2023 peak, and USGS has Myanmar production falling from 27kt to 22kt.

The bit that changed my thinking: everyone worries about the scenario where there's a US-China deal and China floods the market and kills the western producers. For dysprosium and terbium specifically I don't see how they can. Their own heavy feedstock comes through a civil war zone they don't control, their domestic ionic clay deposits are largely mined out, and their own EV/defence/robotics demand is eating what they do get. You can't dump what you're rationing. Flooding is a real threat for NdPr and finished magnets where they have slack, but not for heavies.

Which also means any Kachin flare up, border closure or tax dispute is effectively a supply shock for the one input nobody outside China can replace yet. Interesting setup for whoever actually gets western heavy RE separation running.

Caveats since I'm not a trade data guy: 284690 is gross compound weight not REO content, it lumps heavy and light compounds together, and Comtrade lags Chinese monthly data by the better part of a year so the recent picture is from press reports of the monthly GAC releases, not the database.

Disclosure: long USAR and MP so read with that bias in mind. Happy to be told I've misread the data.