Mineral intelligence
Rare earths mining assets in Africa
Rare earths are seventeen elements, not one commodity. The light ones are relatively common; the heavy ones are the genuine bottleneck.
STRATUM tracks 1 verified rare earths asset across West Africa, from greenfield ground through to producing operations. Each is de-identified before publication, and its evidence is stated for what it is: a resource reported under NI 43-101 or JORC, certified assay results, or earlier stage work that has not reached either yet. What follows is the public view.
Rare earths mining assets tracked on STRATUM
Public view. Operator, licence and exact location are withheld on every asset until access is granted.
What members see
Grades and assay results, resource and reserve estimates, evidence provenance, deal structure, infrastructure and power, and the geospatial layer. Identity of the operator is released only to compliance-cleared members on an approved request.
Rare earths mining: uses, market and Africa’s position
What rare earths is
The commercially important distinction is between light rare earths, principally neodymium and praseodymium, which are hosted in minerals such as monazite and bastnasite, and heavy rare earths, principally dysprosium and terbium, which are far scarcer and are hosted in minerals such as xenotime. A deposit's value depends on which basket it carries, not on its total tonnage.
What rare earths is used for
Permanent magnets
Neodymium iron boron magnets drive electric vehicle motors and wind turbine generators. Dysprosium and terbium are added so those magnets keep their strength when hot, which is why the heavy elements matter disproportionately.
Defence systems
Guidance, radar, sonar and actuators, which is why rare earth supply is treated as a national security question rather than a purely commercial one.
Electronics
Speakers, hard drives, sensors and vibration motors across consumer devices.
Catalysts and optics
Cerium and lanthanum in petroleum refining catalysts, in glass polishing and in specialist optics.
Rare earths market outlook
Mining rare earths is not the hard part. Separating them is. The elements are chemically almost identical and require long solvent extraction cascades to divide, and that separation and refining capacity is overwhelmingly concentrated in China. A deposit outside China without a route to separation is a resource, not a supply chain, which is why offtake and processing arrangements matter more here than in almost any other commodity.
Rare earths in Africa
Africa's rare earth endowment spans the continent. In West Africa, Nigeria produces monazite and is now a leading source of China's imported feedstock. In Southern Africa, Malawi's Kangankunde is a monazite hosted light rare earth project, Angola and South Africa hold further resources, and Namibia's Lofdal is a xenotime hosted heavy rare earth deposit, one of very few anywhere in development. In East Africa, Tanzania and Madagascar hold further resource. The heavy hosted occurrences are the strategically scarce ones.
What to check on a rare earths asset
For a rare earth asset, the basket composition is the first question: what percentage of the contained oxide is neodymium and praseodymium, and what percentage is dysprosium and terbium. Then the host mineral, because monazite carries thorium and the radioactivity affects permitting and processing. Then, decisively, the route to separation.