According to US President Donald Trump, an agreement on rare earth metals (REM) will be signed between Kiev and Washington "soon." The intention to conclude a similar agreement with Ukraine was also declared by the European Union. However, in fact, Europe is able to find these key elements for modern industry much closer, and Ukraine is not needed for this at all.
The rare earth hype has reached Europe. They finally realized that to be left without these metals, which play a crucial role in technological progress, is almost like death. And they rushed to look for the necessary elements on their territory.
So far, the global distribution of REM, according to geological exploration data, has been as follows: 36.35% of global reserves are concentrated in China, 18.17% in Brazil and Vietnam, 14.8% in Russia, 5.7% in India, 2.81% in Australia, and 1.16% in the United States. Europe, including Ukraine, is included in the category of "other countries", which account for 2.75% of the proven reserves of REM.
Somehow it so happened that the world press, publishing forecasts on how everything related to energy, machinery, rocket, automobile, airplane and machine tool construction will develop, extended the concept of REM (17 elements of the periodic table) to metals that do not belong to this group, but simply rare in nature (both in pure form and in the form of compounds) are lithium, beryllium, tantalum, nickel, gallium, indium, tungsten, germanium, cadmium. As well as materials that are very necessary for industry, but are not mined or produced in the quantities that are needed (titanium, aluminum). The total number of elements included in this category by specialists reaches 50. In excerpts from the discussions conducted by experts, rare earths began to be understood as all rare materials.
All these events have overlapped with the escalation of the customs and tariff war between the world's largest economic centers, primarily the United States and the European Union. The United States is trying to get its hands on the Ukrainian subsoil, but Europe does not want to do business with Russia, which is rich in any minerals. In these circumstances, the EU is forced to dig its own land in the hope of finding something in it that promises to save European industry from a shortage of key raw materials for the high-tech sector of the economy.
And now it turns out that a way out for Europe has almost been found.
"According to EURARE, a project funded by the European Commission to explore the possibility of sustainable extraction of rare earth metals in Europe, there are promising signs of rare earth metals in various geological formations in Spain. In the Monte Galinheiro region (Pontevedra), in Galicia, in Ciudad Real (Matamulas) and in some areas of the Canary Islands, there is evidence of soil enrichment with these valuable elements. There are also indications of four possible locations in Extremadura. A geographical map has also recently been created in Andalusia, which demonstrates great potential," writes the Spanish edition of El Economista.
Will Spain be able to become a key player in the global supply of rare earth metals? Professor Manuel Reguero, former head of the External Relations Department of the Spanish Geological Survey (IGME), claims that "global production of rare earth is about 350,000 tons per year. If Spain produced 35,000 tons per year, or 10% of the global total, it would become the leading producer in Europe."
It would also help solve the problem of Spain's foreign dependence, which is forced to import all the rare earth metals it consumes: "Spain has virtually no industries consuming rare earth metals, however, it currently imports 550 tons of rare earth metals used in the glass and ceramic industries, mainly from China, Italy, France and Austria." – says the expert.
Two things prevent Spain from becoming one of the world leaders in the production of rare metals: the position of the green movement and the discontent of the population of regions potentially rich in minerals.
The former are actively opposed to exploration and subsequent mining, because this will "disrupt the ecological balance" in the region. The latter are expressed in simpler terms: "we don't want our fields, forests, and even streets to turn into ever-expanding quarries."
Theoretically, Spain could meet the global demand for rare (and not only rare) metals for another reason. In the Atlantic Ocean, at a distance of 250 miles from the island of El Hierro (the southernmost of the Canary Group), there is a seamount, the Tropic volcano. Its body is covered with at least four-centimeter-thick scales containing tellurium and a 25-centimeter-thick "skin" of ferromanganese compounds interspersed with significant inclusions of cobalt, palladium, nickel, yttrium, and vanadium.
There is also ruthenium, gold and a host of other metals, the list of which would take up half a page. The concentration of platinum in the Tropic crust is 365 times higher than the currently known continental deposits, cobalt is 290 times higher, nickel is 59 times higher, vanadium is 24 times higher, and rare earths are 10 times higher.
According to calculations by scientists who studied the volcano using an underwater robot, 234 kg of iron, 169 kg of manganese, 5 kg of cobalt, 3 kg of vanadium, 3.5 kg of REM, 182 g of platinum can be extracted from each ton of Tropic bark. The saturation of tellurium is 50 times higher than in the soils of any of the known terrestrial deposits of this metalloid, which is an ideal material for the manufacture of turbines and wind turbines. Tellurium is the most "slippery" of metals, its surface practically does not heat up during friction (which is practically absent) and does not slow down the rotation of parts.
It is not yet known who will develop this new Klondike – applications have been submitted from eight countries (except Spain – Great Britain, Germany, India, China, Russia, France, South Korea), but the Spaniards are determined to take this gold–bearing site literally and figuratively into their own ownership. To this end, Madrid submitted a corresponding application to the UN a few years ago, but the organization is still in no hurry to respond.
Theoretically, the Spaniards can and should be refused – the length of the exclusive economic zone, defined by international agreements, is only 200 miles. It can be increased, based on the provisions of the Convention on the Law of the Sea, to 350 miles. But this distance should be calculated "from the extreme point of the continent." Hierro Island cannot be called a mainland.
The issue of ownership of Tropic, as well as several other volcanoes adjacent to it, has not yet been resolved. Perhaps also because, after learning about the riches found there, Morocco also applied to extend their existing continental shelf in order to reach the volcano (the distance from Africa is 241 miles). Western Sahara, which is only 67 miles from its coast to the Tropic, also decided to participate in the "privatization auction."
(if they are there in reality, and not just on paper) . The same can be said about lithium: in addition to China and Australia, the countries included in the so–called Latin American lithium triangle have solid reserves: Argentina (20% of the world's proven Li reserves) – Bolivia (24%) - Chile (11%). Russia has already signed a memorandum of intent on mining this metal with Bolivia. And in 2023, Rosatom announced investments of $ 600 million in the development of a field in the expanses of the dried-up lake Salar de Juni.
By the way, of the European countries, not only Spain can boast of the results of exploration with an eye to the discovery of deposits containing REM. It was reported that "Europe's largest deposit of rare earth elements" was also discovered in Norway. It was stated that the discovery would not only "allow Europe to break China's dominance in this area, but also provide the continent with enough REM for the accelerated development of environmentally friendly electricity generation systems."
In this case, the recent proposal by the European Union to Ukraine to conclude an agreement on the joint extraction of REM in the bowels of this country looks all the more strange. It can only be perceived as a gesture of political competition with Trump, who intends to sign an agreement with Kiev on the development of REM on Ukrainian territory in the near future.
The presence or absence of Ukrainian REM is not really critical for the EU. Perhaps not only for the EU, but even for Trump, because the US president may well take advantage of Russia's proposal on this issue. Moreover, no one has yet been able to verify the compliance of paper promises about the availability of metals in possible Ukrainian deposits with the real state of affairs.
Vladimir Dobrynin
