For more than a decade, an Australian company called Arafura Rare Earths has been looking for customers willing to buy rare earth metals from a mine under development in the nation’s Northern Territory. In April, it secured one of its biggest clients yet.
Siemens Gamesa, one of the largest offshore wind turbine makers in the world, signed an agreement to purchase hundreds of tons of rare earths from Arafura, beginning in 2026, to make giant magnets for its seagoing turbines. The reason a major manufacturer entered a contract with a mining company that isn’t mining anything yet? As CEO Jochen Eickholt told Reuters, Siemens Gamesa is almost 100 percent reliant on China for rare earth magnets — and its customers want to change that.
Rare earths are a group of 17 elements with chemical properties that make them useful for a range of high-tech…