Authored by Michael Kern via OilPrice,
- China extended its pause on the October 2025 rare earth export controls to Jan. 10, but the April 2025 licensing rules that cover yttrium were never part of the pause.
- Argus prices yttrium about 125 times higher in Europe than in China, and Chinese customs data show yttrium oxide shipments to Japan fell to 4,000 kg in September from 51,000 kg a year earlier.
- Non-Chinese yttrium is slow to arrive: Lynas isn’t due to start output until 2028, and USA Rare Earth has so far sent only demonstration-plant samples to one customer.
China bought itself two more months this week by extending the pause on its sweeping October 2025 rare earth export controls to Jan. 10, Reuters reported, but the metal squeezing buyers hardest right now was never covered by it.
That metal is yttrium, which sits under a separate set of licensing rules Beijing imposed in April 2025 on seven medium and heavy rare earths. When the pause began last November, the law firm Pillsbury listed those April rules among the measures still in force, which makes the extension a cheap gift: the October measures have been frozen since then anyway. The shipment data show what the April rules
