Russia's overall reserves of rare metals total 658 mln tonnes - Natural Resources Ministry

MOSCOW. Feb 25 (Interfax) - Russia's reserves of 29 types of rare metals currently total 658 million tonnes, the Natural Resources Ministry said.

"These reserves are sufficient for both the current needs of the Russian economy and for the long term," the ministry said.

Rare metals include 14 types, namely lithium, rubidium, cesium, beryllium, scandium, indium, gallium, germanium, zirconium, hafnium, vanadium, niobium, tantalum, rhenium, as well as a group of rare earth metals at 15 types. The balance of rare earth metals, as included in the rare metals classifier, totals 28.5 million tonnes.

"It should be noted that the group of rare earth metals includes 15 minerals, namely samarium, yttrium, lutetium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, praseodymium, thulium, lanthanum, cerium, ytterbium, terbium, neodymium, gadolinium, europium, and promethium, and all deposits are complex. Namely, minerals can only be mined together in one ore, and minerals can be separated into individual components from the ore," the Natural Resources Ministry said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a meeting on the extraction and processing of rare and rare-earth metals on Monday that Russia planned to ramp up production of new materials based on rare earth metals. To this end, the New Materials and Chemistry national project was launched in 2025, he said.

Putin also said that Russia was willing to invite foreign partners, both governmental and companies, including American ones, for joint work on rare earth metals. "We certainly have more resources of this kind than Ukraine, by an order of magnitude - let me emphasize this, by an order of magnitude. Russia is one of the undisputed leaders in reserves of these rare and rare earth metals. We have them in the North in Murmansk, in the Caucasus and Kabardino-Balkaria, in the Far East, in the Irkutsk region, in Yakutia, in Tuva. These are quite capital-intensive investments, capital-intensive projects. We would gladly work with any foreign partners, including the Americans," he said. He also said the talks on rare-earth metals between Kiev and Washington did not concern Russia.

Russian Industry and Trade Minister Anton Alikhanov said last week that Russia plans to reduce the share of imported rare earth metals to 45% by 2030 from the current 75%, thereby ensuring production at 50,000 tonnes. The authorities are discussing providing benefits to REM-related projects for this purpose, he said.

Russia's biggest proven rare and rare-earth metal deposits are Lovozerskoye in the Murmansk region and Tomtor in Yakutia.

Lovozersky Mining and Processing Plant is part of Rosatom Nedra, formerly Atomredmetzoloto, which is the state Rosatom corporation's mining division. It is Russia's only miner and processor of loparite ore. Lovozersky Mining and Processing Plant supplies loparite concentrate to the Solikamsk Magnesium Plant (SMZ) , also part of Rosatom's mining division, and which extracts tantalum, niobium and titanium from it and produces a bulk concentrate of other rare earth elements for high-tech industry. SMZ capacity is up to 2,500 tonnes of finished products per year. SMZ produces 100% of Russia's rare earth compounds, niobium and tantalum, 75% of its magnesium and 4% of its titanium in Russia.

Tomtor is one of the world's three biggest rare earth metal deposits and is one of the richest in the world in terms of rare earth metal content in ore, as well as the largest non-producing niobium project. The deposit's Buranny section holds an estimated 11.4 million tonnes of ore containing 0.7 million tonnes of niobium oxide and 1.7 million tonnes of rare earth oxides.

The Tomtor project used to belong to the ICT group, with Polymetal a minority shareholder with a 9% stake. Press reports have said Tomtor could be put under the management of the state-owned Rosneftegaz holding. Project investments are estimated at 160 billion rubles.

MMC Norilsk Nickel and Rosatom have formed LLC Polar Lithium to develop the Kolmozerskoye lithium deposit, Russia's largest, in the Murmansk region. The United States imposed sanctions against Polar Lithium in January 2025.

The Kolmozerskoye deposit contains 18.9% of Russia's lithium reserves in 75 million tonnes of ore, and is the country's biggest and most promising such deposit. Its probable P1 lithium oxide resources are 152,600 tonnes, tantalum pentoxide 1,215 tonnes and niobium pentoxide 1,485 tonnes.

A mine at the Kolmozerskoye deposit will produce 45,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate and hydroxide per year, with full ramp-up by 2030. Project capex was estimated at 91 billion rubles in October 2024.

Full ramp-up to 45,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate per year will be achieved by 2030. Project NPV is estimated at 4.3 billion rubles and IRR at 19%. The deposit will be mined by the open-pit method and has enough reserves for 39 years.