Cerium (Ce)

Cerium is the most abundant of the rare earth elements (REEs). It has many industrial applications, including for chemical catalysis in the automotive industry, as an alloying element for high-performance steels, aluminium and other metals, and as a polishing agent for glass and optics.

REEs are commonly divided into “light” and “heavy” groupings, and cerium falls into the group of light REEs. Cerium production is highly concentrated in China, in particular in the Bayan Obo mining district in Inner Mongolia. Because of this concentration, and the utility of cerium in key industries, it is considered a “critical mineral” by the US government and the European Commission.The most significant REE mine outside China is the Mountain Pass mine in California. Work is underway and planned to restore domestic processing capabilities for minerals mined at Mountain Pass, to increase US supply chain security. REE are also mined at the Mount Weld facility in Australia and processed in the Lynas refinery in Malaysia 1 2, which is the only major REE processor outside of China and which provides over 10% of global REE supply. 3 4

Little data is publicly available on cerium production, reserves, price history and recycling rates, as an individual metal, and very few reports on ESG topics discuss cerium by name. At the production and processing stages, public reporting tends to analyse the REEs in aggregate. The supply chain risk risk indicators featured in this profile are not  not publicly available for cerium as an individual metal, however scores can be found for REE in aggregate in the corresponding profile.5

While a cursory analysis of ESG risks associated with cerium might produce few results, care should be taken to consider risks that are reported to apply to REE in general, as these will almost certainly apply to cerium specifically too.