Rare Earth Elements and Turkey's Role: What Do 694 Million Tons Really Mean?

Anyone who works with electronics has at some point been surprised by how strong the magnet inside a tiny motor or speaker can be. Behind that strength there are often elements we rarely hear about: neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium. They all belong to a 17-member family known as the rare earth elements.

For a few years this family has been in the news in Turkey too. Almost every report about the deposit at Beylikova, in Eskişehir province, repeats the same two phrases: “694 million tons” and “the world’s second-largest reserve”. In this piece I want to look at what that number actually tells us.

What are rare earth elements, and why do they matter?

Rare earth elements are a group of 17: the 15 lanthanides plus scandium and yttrium [2]. Despite the name, they are not especially rare in the Earth’s crust. The hard part is finding them in concentrations that can be processed economically, and then separating them from one another.

The US Geological Survey’s 2025 report lists catalysts, ceramics and glass, metallurgical applications and polishing among their uses. It also notes that a significant share enters trade as permanent magnets embedded in finished goods [1]. In other words, we usually buy these elements not as raw material but as a part inside a device.

The global picture: a chain in one country’s hands

According to the USGS, global rare earth mine production rose to about 390,000 tons of rare earth oxide (REO) equivalent in 2024, of which 270,000 tons came from China [1]. Roughly seven of every ten tons come from a single country. The often-quoted line that “China holds about 70 percent of global production” is consistent with that data [1][2].

Reserves are somewhat more spread out, but the direction is the same: world reserves exceed 90 million tons of REO, and 44 million of those are in China [1]. And having an element in the ground does not mean a country can turn it into something usable. Mining the ore is the first step; separating and refining the elements is an industry of its own.

What do 694 million tons measure?

The Beylikova figure was first announced in 2022 by then Energy Minister Fatih Dönmez. According to Dönmez, 125,193 metres of drilling over six years and 59,121 samples revealed a 694-million-ton reserve, second only to an 800-million-ton deposit in China [3].

To me, this is the critical distinction: 694 million tons is a quantity of ore, not of pure rare earth elements. A Bianet review shows the confusion clearly. Dönmez described the figure as a “rare earth element discovery”, while his successor Alparslan Bayraktar spoke in December 2023 of “an ore body of about 690 million tons” [4]. A metallurgical engineer quoted in the same review points out that only proven reserves can be assessed economically [4].

This matters because the USGS world reserve figures are expressed in oxide, not ore [1]. Setting 694 million tons of ore beside 90 million tons of oxide reserves is comparing apples with oranges. The “world’s second-largest reserve” claim rests on a comparison of ore tonnage. Until the oxide content and economic viability are clear, that ranking is not settled fact.

What could the deposit produce?

The real question is how much REO Beylikova can deliver. According to the 2022 announcement, the planned industrial plant would process 570,000 tons of ore a year to obtain 10,000 tons of rare earth oxide, and 10 of the 17 elements found at the site could be produced there [3].

If that target holds, what does it mean? World production in 2024 was about 390,000 tons [1]. Ten thousand tons a year is roughly 2.5 percent of that: a meaningful contribution, but not a volume that would shift the global balance.

The timeline is not settled either. According to a November 2025 report in Yeni Şafak, the pilot plant was set up in 2020 and purification currently reaches 92–93 percent. The industrial-scale plant is targeted to start within two years, and cooperation talks are under way with China, Canada, Australia and several European countries [5].

What is Turkey’s real card?

In my view, Turkey’s card is not the “second-largest reserve” title. The real card is the chance to become an alternative in a supply chain this dependent on China: geographically close to Europe and keeping the door to cooperation open in more than one direction. The assessment reported by GZT points the same way: that Turkey is on the threshold of becoming a strategic actor rather than a spectator in this field [2].

But standing on the threshold is not the same as walking through the door. That card becomes real only when three things are settled: the oxide content of the ore is reported to international standards, separation and refining technology is built at home, and the industrial plant keeps to a timeline.

Until then, “694 million tons” is less an announcement of success than a question mark. We know roughly what lies underground. What I want to know is how much of it, and when, we can bring to the surface.

Sources

1. U.S. Geological Survey, “Rare Earths”, Mineral Commodity Summaries 2025
2. “Türkiye nadir elementlerde seyirci değil, stratejik aktör olma eşiğinde”, GZT, 19 January 2026 (Turkish)
3. “Bakan Dönmez, dünyanın ikinci büyük rezerv keşfinin detaylarını duyurdu”, Milliyet/İHA, 1 July 2022 (Turkish)
4. Tuğçe Yılmaz, Vecih Cuzdan, “Beylikova’daki nadir toprak elementleri rezervine dair: Bilinenler ve bilinemeyenler”, Bianet, 9 October 2025 (Turkish)
5. Merve Safa Akıntürk, “Nadir elementlerde üç yeni tesis yolda”, Yeni Şafak, 1 November 2025 (Turkish)

Glossary: Rare earth elements

The views in this piece are my own and do not represent the organisations I am part of.