China’s erbium producers control the overwhelming majority of global supply, and that dominance looks set to persist well beyond the timeline most Western heavy rare earth projects are working to. Erbium is a heavy rare earth element (HREE), and HREE mine supply comes almost exclusively from ion-adsorption clay deposits concentrated in southern China. Carbonatite deposits elsewhere in the world, including Australia’s Mount Weld and Inner Mongolia’s Bayan Obo, are light rare earth dominant and carry little to no erbium.
This ranking covers the entities with confirmed erbium output or the processing infrastructure and feedstock access to produce it. It excludes companies whose current product slate, however HREE-focused, does not include erbium. Several major Western heavy rare earth projects fall into that second category: they are real, well-funded, and strategically significant, but as of mid-2026 they are producing dysprosium and terbium, not erbium.
How this ranking of erbium producers was built
Ranking criteria prioritise HREE production and processing capacity, structured in three tiers: Chinese state-consolidated conglomerates first, then Western and non-China integrated producers building toward erbium capability, then chemical suppliers and distributors where genuinely distinct from primary production. Chemical distributors that repackage erbium oxide sourced from Chinese producers are listed separately rather than ranked alongside miners and refiners, since including them in the same tier would overstate the number of independent supply sources.
Top 10 erbium producers ranked
1. China Rare Earth Group
China Rare Earth Group is the dominant force among global erbium producers, formed in December 2021 to consolidate the majority of southern China’s heavy and medium rare earth assets under a single state entity. Its subsidiaries mine ion-adsorption clay deposits across Jiangxi and Guangdong, the geological source of most of the world’s erbium, dysprosium, terbium and holmium. Unlike the light-rare-earth-focused northern axis centred on Baotou, China Rare Earth Group’s entire strategic mandate is heavy and medium rare earth output. Two of its subsidiaries carry separate stock listings (000831.SZ and 600259.SH), though the parent group itself remains unlisted. For erbium specifically, this is the closest thing the market has to a primary, at-scale producer.
2. Shenghe Resources
Shenghe Resources operates the most internationally embedded strategy of any Chinese rare earth company, anchored by a 7.7% equity stake in MP Materials and a long-term offtake agreement for Mountain Pass concentrate. Domestically, Shenghe’s HREE processing operations in China feed into the same separation pipeline that produces terbium, dysprosium and erbium for export, giving it a dual identity as both a Chinese state-affiliated processor and a global trading intermediary. As Western governments scrutinise Chinese exposure in critical mineral supply chains, Shenghe’s role as a conduit between non-Chinese mines and Chinese separation capacity remains a live geopolitical issue.
3. Xiamen Tungsten
Xiamen Tungsten sits within China’s tiered rare earth processing hierarchy, below the six state-controlled mining quota groups but with meaningful downstream capacity in magnets and rare earth oxides, including erbium-bearing product lines. The company has also expanded internationally, operating joint mining and processing ventures in Laos, a country with its own ion-adsorption heavy rare earth deposits. That gives Xiamen Tungsten a feedstock base extending beyond domestic Chinese clay, a distinguishing factor among the companies on this list.
4. Lynas Rare Earths
Lynas Rare Earths is the only non-Chinese company currently producing separated heavy rare earth oxides at commercial scale, having brought dysprosium, terbium and samarium online at its Malaysian facility through 2025 and early 2026. Its stated near-term roadmap extends to gadolinium, yttrium and lutetium within two years. Erbium sits one tier below that: Lynas has explicitly named europium, holmium, ytterbium and erbium as products it is evaluating based on commercial demand and return on the additional flowsheet investment required, rather than committed near-term output. Lynas is included here as the most advanced non-Chinese HREE separator with a credible, named path to erbium, not as a current erbium supplier.
5. Iluka Resources
Iluka Resources‘ Eneabba refinery in Western Australia, backed by an AUD 1.65 billion government loan, is designed to produce both light and heavy separated rare earth oxides once commissioning completes, now targeted for 2027. Confirmed output plans centre on neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium and terbium, which together represent over 80% of the value in Iluka’s monazite and xenotime stockpile. Erbium is not named among Eneabba’s confirmed initial product suite. Iluka’s inclusion reflects the scale of the refinery and its role as one of very few facilities outside China engineered for both light and heavy oxide separation, rather than any current erbium output.
6. Energy Fuels
Energy Fuels achieved the first primary US production of terbium oxide in decades in March 2026 at its White Mesa Mill, and has since begun construction on a $104 million expansion targeting commercial-scale terbium, dysprosium, samarium, europium and gadolinium circuits by late 2027 and 2028. Erbium is not part of the confirmed circuit build-out. The company’s integration strategy, including its pending acquisitions of Australian Strategic Materials and Vacuumschmelze, points toward a fuller mine-to-magnet platform, but erbium remains outside the disclosed roadmap for now.
7. Neo Performance Materials
Neo Performance Materials commissioned Europe’s first heavy rare earth separation line at its Silmet facility in Estonia in April 2026, producing separated terbium and dysprosium process solutions from mixed rare earth carbonate feedstock. This makes Neo the first company to separate HREEs commercially on European soil. As with the other Western entrants on this list, the current product output stops at terbium and dysprosium; erbium separation has not been announced as part of Silmet’s near-term scope.
8. Northern Minerals
Northern Minerals‘ Browns Range project in Western Australia hosts xenotime mineralisation, a mineral class that naturally carries a broader heavy rare earth basket than the dysprosium and terbium the company markets as its primary payable elements. A definitive feasibility study puts Browns Range at roughly 8% of global dysprosium-terbium demand once operational. Final investment decision is targeted for the fourth quarter of 2026, with first production not expected before 2028. Northern Minerals has a binding agreement to supply xenotime concentrate to Iluka’s Eneabba refinery. Given the pre-production stage, any erbium content in Browns Range concentrate would reach the market only once both projects are operating and downstream separation is running.
9. IREL (India)
IREL, formerly Indian Rare Earths Limited, processes monazite at its Odisha extraction plant and Kerala refining unit under India’s Department of Atomic Energy. IREL currently produces 8 of the 17 rare earth elements, including lanthanum, cerium, neodymium, praseodymium, gadolinium, samarium, europium and dysprosium, with pilot-scale terbium output underway. Erbium is not among IREL’s confirmed separated products, though monazite feedstock naturally carries trace heavy rare earths including erbium that could support future output as India’s Rare Earth Corridors initiative expands capacity through 2027.
10. Chemical and materials suppliers (downstream tier)
A distinct tier from the producers above: specialist chemical suppliers such as Stanford Advanced Materials and Beijing Freerun Technology sell high-purity erbium oxide, erbium fluoride and nano erbium products to end users in optics, electronics and specialty glass. These companies do not mine or separate rare earths; they purchase erbium compounds, typically sourced from Chinese ion-adsorption clay processors, and repackage or further refine them for research and industrial customers. They matter to buyers seeking small-volume, high-purity erbium, but they are downstream of the actual supply chain bottleneck and are listed here as a distinct category rather than ranked alongside primary producers.
The gap this ranking exposes
The pattern across every non-Chinese entity researched for this piece is consistent: heavy rare earth separation capacity is being built at real pace in Australia, the United States and Europe, but every one of those projects is sequencing dysprosium and terbium ahead of erbium. That is a rational commercial choice. Dysprosium and terbium go into NdFeB permanent magnets at meaningful volumes and command correspondingly large, liquid markets. Erbium’s demand base, concentrated in fibre-optic amplifiers, medical lasers and specialty glass, is smaller and more fragmented, which lowers its priority in early-stage flowsheet design even at companies explicitly building HREE capability.
The practical result is that erbium supply concentration in China is not simply a mining geography problem, it is also a sequencing problem. Even a successful decade of Western HREE investment, several of the projects above, could still leave erbium as one of the last elements to see meaningful non-Chinese separated output. According to the USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026, China’s export control regime on heavy rare earths, tightened progressively since April 2025, remains the dominant policy variable for buyers of erbium and its HREE counterparts through the current suspension period.
One development worth watching: in January 2026, Baogang Group announced the discovery of bayanoboite-Y, a new mineral at Bayan Obo containing yttrium, dysprosium, gadolinium, erbium and lutetium among other heavy rare earths. According to Fastmarkets, sources close to the discovery cautioned it remains a long way from commercial processing, but it is the first indication that China’s northern light-rare-earth base could eventually add HREE output, including erbium, alongside the established southern axis.
Who are the largest erbium producers globally?
China Rare Earth Group and its subsidiaries dominate erbium supply through ion-adsorption clay processing in Jiangxi and Guangdong. Outside China, no producer has confirmed commercial erbium separation as of 2026, though several are building capacity that could add erbium later.
Why does China control most erbium production?
Erbium is a heavy rare earth element found mainly in ion-adsorption clay deposits, which are concentrated in southern China. Carbonatite deposits elsewhere in the world, including Australia’s Mount Weld, are light rare earth dominant and contain little erbium.
Are Western companies producing erbium yet?
Not commercially. Companies including Lynas, Energy Fuels, Iluka and Neo Performance Materials are building heavy rare earth separation capacity, but their current and near-term production plans prioritise dysprosium and terbium, with erbium output contingent on future customer demand.
What is erbium used for?
Erbium is used in fibre-optic amplifiers, nuclear reactor control rods, medical and dental lasers, and as a pink colourant in glass and ceramics.
