EU's rare earths push is 10 years late, Boliden CEO says

The importance of rare earth resources, powering everything from smartphones to electric vehicles, has been increasing as China, which produces more than 90% of the world's processed rare earths, recently imposed additional export restrictions.

Europe's lack of self-sufficiency in critical raw materials is a vulnerability that needs to be addressed, despite the slow process involved in making significant changes, Boliden CEO Mikael Staffas told Reuters.

He saw the EU executive's latest initiative as a sign that the 27-country bloc wanted to do something, but warned a lot more needed to be done.

"The Critical Raw Materials Act that we got a while back was ... a small step, and I think that the EU will need to do many more small steps if they want to have some more independence," Staffas said.

Aurubis CEO Toralf Haag said on Thursday that Europe's largest copper producer had so far not seen much impact from the Act, implemented last year, though he still expects it to have positive longer-term effects on the sector.

NO BOLIDEN PROJECTS UNDER EU'S NEW PLAN

Some minerals produced by Boliden, such as copper and nickel, are on the EU's key resources list. However, it sees little benefit from the new initiative, which focuses heavily on rare earths rather than other critical raw materials.

"Right now everybody's talking about rare earths being super critical, and there we do not have any project," Staffas said, adding that the size of the planned grants was also relatively small.

"Even if we were to get all the . . . three-billion of what the EU Sommission set up ... [it] would last us about two years in our regular investment," he said. Earlier on Friday, Boliden forecast capital spending of 15-billion Swedish crowns ($1.6-billion) for 2026.

Boliden's project related to its Somincor mine extension in Portugal is on the initial list introduced under the Critical Raw Materials Act, but none of its projects fit into the latest rare earths push.