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Brazil has the second-largest rare earth reserve in the world, with 21 million tons representing 23% of the global total. It also holds 94% of the world’s niobium reserves, is second in graphite, and third in nickel. But rare earths, critical minerals, and strategic minerals are different concepts, and understanding the distinction is essential to comprehending the geopolitical dispute that places the country at the center of the energy transition board.
Brazil holds underground reserves of minerals that the entire world disputes, but few Brazilians know the difference between the three concepts dominating global geopolitical headlines: rare earths, critical minerals, and strategic minerals. According to the Geological Survey of Brazil (SGB), rare earths are a specific group of 17 chemical elements in the periodic table, including 15 lanthanides, scandium, and yttrium, essential for technologies such as wind turbines, electric cars, batteries, and defense systems. Despite the name, they are not necessarily rare in nature but are often dispersed, which makes economic exploration difficult.
The confusion between the three terms is not merely semantic: it has practical consequences for the country’s mineral policy. Strategic minerals are those considered essential for economic development and important in high-tech products and the energy transition. Critical minerals are those whose supply involves risks, such as geographical concentration of production, external dependence, and geopolitical instability. The definition of which minerals fall into each category varies from country to country and changes over time, but Brazil stands out as a protagonist in all lists due to its colossal reserves.
The size of Brazilian reserves and where they are hidden
According to information released by Revista Fórum, the numbers from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) place Brazil in a privileged position across multiple categories. The country holds 94% of the world’s niobium reserves, with 16 million tons, an indispensable mineral for high-strength steel alloys used in aviation, infrastructure, and defense. It is second in the global ranking of graphite reserves, with 74 million tons representing 26% of the world’s total, and third in nickel, with 16 million tons and 12% of global reserves.
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Brazilian rare earths, estimated at 21 million tons, are concentrated in Minas Gerais, Goiás, Amazonas, Bahia, and Sergipe. These states host the main types of deposits with economic potential, but most have never been commercially explored because Brazil historically prioritized the export of higher-volume, lower-value-added minerals, such as iron and bauxite. Diversification into rare earths and critical minerals requires investment in research, mapping, and, primarily, in refining capacity that the country still lacks.
Why China dominates the market and what this means for Brazil
China largely leads the refining and production of rare earths, controlling over 60% of global extraction and almost the entire processing chain. This concentration raises concern among powers like the United States and the European Union, which seek to diversify suppliers to reduce dependence on a single country in a sector that is the foundation of modern technology.
For Brazil, Chinese dominance is both a threat and an opportunity. If the country manages to develop refining and beneficiation capacity, its reserves could meet Western demand for alternative sources of rare earths and critical minerals. If it continues merely extracting and exporting raw materials, it will repeat the historical pattern that Professor Luiz Jardim Wanderley, from the Federal Fluminense University, describes as the perpetuation of the “primary-exporting country” condition that has marked the Brazilian economy since colonial gold.
The challenge beyond extraction: beneficiation and refining
Professor Jardim Wanderley points out that the Brazilian challenge is not just in extraction. The production chain of critical minerals involves complex stages such as beneficiation and refining that are still underdeveloped in Brazil, which leads the country to export cheap raw materials and import high-value finished products. Brazil exports many minerals and consumes very little of them in the domestic market.
Without investment in processing, Brazilian reserves remain unrealized potential. Niobium is an example: despite holding 94% of global reserves, Brazil processes only part of the ore internally, and the added value of the production chain is concentrated in countries that transform niobium into special alloys for aviation and infrastructure. The same pattern is repeated with graphite, nickel, and rare earths: Brazil has the resource but does not capture the value it can generate.
The environmental impacts that accompany mineral exploration
The exploration of critical minerals and rare earths is not free of environmental and social costs. Professor Jardim Wanderley is categorical in stating that there is no sustainable mining and that all extraction causes heavy impacts, such as the compromising of water resources, economic pressure in the municipalities where it occurs, increased poverty, inequality, and urban violence.
The assessment does not mean that mining should be abandoned, but that it needs to be rethought. It is possible to create a less degrading model, but large excavations will continue to dismantle mountains and affect watercourses, according to the geographer. For Brazil, which has globally important reserves, the issue is to balance the economic and geopolitical gains of exploration with the protection of ecosystems and communities living in the mining regions of Minas Gerais, Goiás, Amazonas, and Bahia.
Brazil’s official list of strategic minerals and what it reveals
The Ministry of Mines and Energy published a list in 2021 of minerals considered strategic for national development, divided into three groups. The first includes minerals that Brazil needs to import: sulfur, phosphate, potassium, and molybdenum. The second gathers those used in high-tech products, such as cobalt, copper, lithium, niobium, rare earths, and uranium. The third lists those that generate a trade balance surplus, such as iron, gold, manganese, and aluminum.
The list reveals a contradiction: Brazil is a superpower in reserves, but imports minerals it could produce internally if it invested in prospecting and processing. Periodic updating of the list is necessary because technological advancements and geopolitical changes constantly alter which minerals are considered critical or strategic. Lithium, for example, has gained relevance in recent years with the explosion in demand for electric vehicle batteries, and Brazil has reserves that have not yet been fully dimensioned.
Did you know that Brazil has the world’s second-largest rare earth reserve and 94% of global niobium, or did you think these minerals only existed in China? Tell us in the comments if you believe the country will be able to industrialize its reserves or if it will continue exporting raw materials as it has for centuries.
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