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Yttrium isn’t widely known, but it’s embedded in a lot of modern technology—and that’s exactly why it’s getting attention at the geopolitical level.

It’s element 39 on the periodic table, a silvery metal that behaves like the rare earth elements (REEs), so it’s typically grouped with them. It was first identified from a mineral found in Ytterby, Sweden—a small town that ended up naming multiple elements, which is one of the stranger footnotes in chemistry.

The key point: yttrium isn’t mined directly.
It’s produced almost entirely as a byproduct of rare earth mining, which means its supply is tied to the economics of the broader rare earth market—not standalone demand for yttrium.

It occurs in minerals like monazite and bastnäsite, and in ion-adsorption clays—especially in southern China, which is where the story really starts to matter.

Why China dominates yttrium (and why that matters)

China controls a large share of the global rare earth supply chain—but more importantly, it dominates processing and separation, which is the real bottleneck.

• China has spent decades building out chemical separation capacity, which is complex, environmentally intensive, and expensive to replicate
• Many non-Chinese mines still rely on Chinese facilities for refining
• Yttrium, like other “heavier” rare earth-associated elements, is particularly tied to these processing flows

Companies like Lynas Rare Earths (Australia) and MP Materials (U.S.) are trying to build out alternative supply chains, but most of the industry is still catching up on the refining side, not just mining.

Smaller volumes come from India, Myanmar, and parts of Africa, but none currently match China’s integrated system.

Why governments care (and why this shows up in U.S.–China discussions)

Yttrium isn’t strategic on its own—it’s strategic because it’s part of the rare earth ecosystem.

The same supply chains that produce yttrium also produce materials critical for:

• Magnets (EVs, wind turbines, defense systems)
• Advanced electronics and semiconductors
• Energy systems and high-performance materials

That’s why rare earths—and by extension yttrium—keep coming up in trade talks, export controls, and industrial policy discussions involving the U.S. and China.

The constraint isn’t just “dig more out of the ground.” It’s:

• Permitting new mines (slow in the West)
• Building separation/refining capacity (technically difficult and capital intensive)
• Managing environmental costs (which China historically absorbed more aggressively)

Where yttrium is actually used

Even if you’ve never heard of it, you’ve likely used something that depends on it:

• Electronics: phosphors in displays and LED lighting
• Advanced materials: yttria-stabilized zirconia (used in ceramics, fuel cells, and thermal barrier coatings in turbines)
• Medical: yttrium-90 for targeted cancer therapies
• Superconductors: part of high-temperature superconducting materials

The bigger picture

Yttrium is a classic byproduct metal—you don’t increase supply just because demand rises. It comes along for the ride with rare earth production.

That creates a structural issue:
demand can grow quickly (AI, energy transition, defense), but supply responds slowly and unevenly.

Which is why something most people have never heard of ends up sitting in the middle of global supply chain strategy—and why governments keep circling back to rare earths and China.

Feels bearish short term.

The market is short term. China can knock down the price of these rare earth and minor metals with one announcement. The market will sell off. But fundamentally it doesn’t change the fact they control the refining.

If this causes a sell off. China will increase the cost of capital for western rare earth names. So it’s a massive win for them. Less production will go in to the pipeline. More control.

The cycle can only be broken with actual western controlled production and refining:

White House Fact Sheet on Trump-Xi Meeting Released: Critical Minerals & Rare Earths “Will Be Addressed” $MP $USAR $TMC $UAMY $UUUU $AREC $NB

• China will address U.S. concerns regarding supply chain shortages related to rare earths and other critical minerals, including yttrium, scandium, neodymium, and indium.

• China will also address U.S. concerns regarding prohibitions or restrictions on the sale of rare earth production and processing equipment and technologies.

A few thoughts today on Trump’s China visit and possible impacts to the rare earth market.

https://preview.redd.it/6a38qhxcib1h1.jpg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7530b4c2dd5dee94e9804135e522fa421bf82791

Feels like just a matter of time before the price of gold starts to move up again.

Mitchell's take on fluorspar and a company he is involved with - AE Fuels.

The metals nobody's watching are usually the ones that make you money. Hafnium doesn't get headlines. It doesn't trade on an exchange so it's not easy to get. But it is critical to a bunch of stuff.

Since the start of 2025, hafnium is up nearly 187%. Not a typo. The metal went from roughly $4,300/kg at the start of 2025 to where it sits now after tacking on another 31% in Q1 2026 alone. That's not a spike — that's a structural move.

So what's actually going on?

Hafnium is a by-product metal. You don't go mine hafnium. You get it as a side effect of refining zirconium — roughly 1 tonne of hafnium for every 50 tonnes of zirconium. That's it. That's your supply. You can't just spin up new production because prices are high. The supply side doesn't care about your demand problem.

And the demand side: aerospace, semiconductors, nuclear.

Jet engines need it. Advanced chips need it. Nuclear reactors need it for control rods. These aren't discretionary buyers who shrug and find a substitute. Airbus alone is forecasting demand for over 43,000 new aircraft over the next 20 years. AI is accelerating semiconductor fab investment. And nuclear is making a serious comeback — the UK just backed Rolls-Royce SMRs. None of that is going away.

On top of that, China has been tightening export controls on hafnium. Reuters was reporting European prices near record highs in late 2025 because of it. When the dominant supplier starts playing gatekeeper, the market reprices — fast.

The bottom line

This is not a one-quarter story. Fortune Business Insights projects the global hafnium market to double. In a market this small, that kind of growth keeps prices elevated for years, not months.

The buyers who matter aren't shopping around for deals anymore. They're scrambling to secure availability. That's a different kind of market.

We've seen this movie before. Small market, inelastic supply, demand from sectors that can't substitute — it reprices in steps, not smooth curves, and it tends to reward people who got in before everyone else figured it out.

Hafnium isn’t a metal you hear about often. It sits in the background—used in aerospace, semiconductors, and nuclear—but rarely makes headlines.

That’s exactly why what’s happening right now matters.

Since the start of 2025, hafnium prices have surged ~187%. That’s not normal for any metal—especially one this small and illiquid.

This isn’t a speculative spike either. It’s a classic supply squeeze showing up in real time.

What’s driving it?

1) It’s structurally scarce

• Hafnium isn’t mined directly
• You only get ~1 tonne of hafnium for every ~50 tonnes of zirconium
• Separation is complex and capacity is limited

That means supply doesn’t respond quickly—if at all.

2) Demand is coming from the right places

• Aerospace → high-temp superalloys (think turbines)
• Semiconductors → hafnium oxide in advanced chips
• Nuclear → control rods (it absorbs neutrons extremely well)

These aren’t optional end markets. They’re growing—and hard to substitute.

3) China tightened exports
Late 2025 saw export restrictions + stronger semiconductor demand (AI-related), pushing prices toward record highs in Europe.

That’s when this really flipped from “niche metal” to “availability problem.”

What’s actually changed?

It’s no longer about price.

Buyers are starting to worry about whether they can get material at all.

When a tiny market like this starts moving aggressively, it usually means one thing:
the freely available supply is disappearing.

Outlook (my view):

• Next 6–12 months: still tight, probably volatile but biased higher
• 1–2 years: demand (AI chips, aerospace, nuclear) keeps pressure on supply
• 3–5 years: this looks like a classic strategic choke-point metal

This is the kind of market that doesn’t move smoothly—it reprices in jumps.

Why this matters

Hafnium is a perfect example of a “by-design scarce” metal:

• Not exchange traded
• Not widely followed
• Not easy to scale supply
• Critical to advanced industries

Those are exactly the markets that tend to break when demand ramps.

Bottom line:
Hafnium just went from “interesting niche” to “strategic bottleneck.”

And almost no one is paying attention yet.

Our reaction to the news of Sherritt exiting Cuba and possible nickel marker implications.

Copper doesn’t get the same attention as lithium or uranium, but it arguably matters more than both. It’s one of the few materials that shows up everywhere—power, construction, transportation, and increasingly, the backbone of the energy transition.

Where does copper come from?

Copper production is surprisingly concentrated.

The biggest producers today:

• Chile (by far the largest)
• Peru
• Democratic Republic of Congo (growing fast)
• China (more refining than mining)
• United States
• Australia

A few things stand out:

• Chile and Peru alone account for a huge portion of global supply
• Political risk, water shortages, and permitting issues are slowing new projects
• Ore grades have been declining for decades (you have to move more rock for the same copper)

On top of that, refining is heavily influenced by China, which adds another layer of geopolitical complexity.

What is copper actually used for?

Copper is essentially the best large-scale conductor we have that’s also affordable and durable.

Major uses:

• Electrical wiring & power grids (homes, cities, infrastructure)
• Renewable energy (wind turbines, solar farms)
• Electric vehicles (EVs use ~2–4x more copper than internal combustion cars)
• Data centers & AI infrastructure
• Construction & plumbing
• Industrial machinery

If electricity is moving, copper is usually involved.

Why is copper so important right now?

This is where it gets interesting.

We’re trying to electrify everything:

• cars → EVs
• heating → electric
• industry → electrification
• grid → expanded and modernized

All of that requires massive amounts of copper.

At the same time:

• New mines take 10–15+ years to permit and build
• Existing mines are aging and declining in quality
• ESG and local opposition are slowing development

So you get a simple but powerful setup:

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The bigger picture

Copper is often called “the metal with a PhD in economics” because it reflects global growth. But now it’s more than that—it’s becoming a strategic material.

If you believe in:

• AI buildout
• grid expansion
• electrification
• energy transition

Then copper isn’t optional—it’s foundational.

Open question:

Do we actually have enough copper supply coming online to meet demand over the next decade, or are we setting up for a structural shortage?

Each announcement it all keeps getting bigger and bigger