Rare Earth Events October 2026: Seven Key Events

• Rare earth events October 2026 span three continents, led by Project Blue’s Critical Materials Forum Seoul on 26 October.
• London hosts a dense cluster of seven separate events across 13–21 October, anchored by LME Week from 19–23 October.
• Project Blue runs two forums this month — Seoul (26 Oct) and London (20 Oct) — making it the most active single organiser on the October calendar.
• The month opens with the Critical Minerals Innovation Forum in London (13–14 Oct) and closes with the Critical Minerals Expo & Conference in Atlanta (28–29 Oct).
• SMM runs two separate events this month: Li-ion Battery China 2026 in Chengdu (15–16 Oct) and the 2026 SMM London Metals Forum during LME Week (21 Oct).

Rare earth events October 2026 form one of the year’s most geographically spread months, with confirmed gatherings in Seoul, London, Chengdu, Washington DC and Atlanta. The headline date for REM readers is 26 October, when Project Blue’s Critical Materials Forum Seoul brings EV and battery supply chain leaders together at the Lotte Hotel. London absorbs the bulk of the remaining calendar, with LME Week creating a rare concentration of seven separate critical minerals events inside a nine-day window.

Critical Materials Forum: Seoul 2026 — Project Blue

Project Blue’s Critical Materials Forum Seoul is this month’s standout event for REM readers. The free, one-day forum runs 26 October at the Lotte Hotel Seoul and focuses on the EV and lithium-ion battery supply chain, from raw materials through to end-use markets. Confirmed speakers include David Abraham of Materium Strata, Ross Gregory of New Electric Partners, and Marina Demidova of the Cobalt Institute, alongside Project Blue’s own David Merriman and Luke Allum.

Seoul’s position as a battery cell and cathode manufacturing hub makes this a useful read against South Korea’s broader rare earth import and supply risk position, and the agenda ties directly into the wider shift in rare earth demand from energy transition applications. For the full agenda, venue detail and speaker list, see REM’s standalone Critical Materials Forum Seoul guide.

Critical Minerals Innovation Forum — London

The Critical Minerals Innovation Forum opens the month’s London calendar on 13–14 October, bringing together 100+ senior leaders from mining, manufacturing, finance and policy. The agenda centres on responsible supply chain practices at a point where downstream companies are increasingly removed from extraction and data across the value chain remains fragmented — a governance conversation that runs parallel to, rather than overlapping with, the pricing and trading focus of the LME Week events that follow it the same month.

SMM Li-ion Battery China 2026 — Chengdu

Shanghai Metals Market holds its Li-ion Battery China 2026 conference on 15–16 October at the Howard Johnson Agile Plaza in Chengdu, Sichuan. The event targets mining and refining companies, chemicals and active-material producers, cell manufacturers, recyclers, and automotive and storage customers, and offers a smaller-format alternative to the very large CIBF and CLNB exhibitions. As with September’s ASCC and CLNB events, the battery-material focus sits outside REM’s core coverage directly, but the same automotive OEM and cell-manufacturer audience underpins NdFeB magnet demand tracked on China’s rare earth supply pages.

North America Critical Minerals Summit — Washington DC

The North America Critical Minerals Summit runs 19 October at the Ritz-Carlton in Washington DC, bringing together government, industry and private capital to accelerate funding pathways for rare earth exploration, processing, manufacturing and recycling. The summit’s capital-alignment focus is a useful companion read to REM’s United States rare earth guide, given the summit’s explicit remit covers the same domestic project-financing gap that guide tracks.

Rare Earth Events October 2026: London’s LME Week Cluster

London hosts the densest concentration of rare earth events October 2026 has to offer, with seven separate gatherings falling across 19–21 October during LME Week. The week opens with the LME Metals Seminar at the QEII Centre on 19 October, followed on 20 October by Project Blue and the MMTA’s Critical Materials Forum: London 2026 at the De Vere Grand Connaught Rooms, running 13:00–17:00 with sessions on how geopolitics, AI, defence and industrial policy are reshaping commodity markets.

The same day, Benchmark Mineral Intelligence runs its Benchmark Summit London at 116 Pall Mall, and CRU holds its CRU Breakfast 2026 at the Waldorf Hilton covering copper, aluminium and battery metals demand. The Mining & Critical Minerals Europe Conference & Exhibition runs 20–21 October at the Hilton London Metropole, drawing 200+ senior executives from 15+ countries across the full mineral resources value chain. The week closes on 21 October with the 2026 SMM London Metals Forum at the Guy Whittle Auditorium and Wood Mackenzie’s LME Forum on Park Lane. Readers planning London travel around the UK’s rare earth processing and recycling strategy should note the overlap and plan accordingly, as none of these seven events run back-to-back without scheduling conflicts.

22nd International Rare Earths Conference — Metal Events, Seoul

Metal Events holds its 22nd International Rare Earths Conference in Seoul this October, its first time holding the event in South Korea. Widely regarded as one of the industry’s premier annual gatherings, the conference includes a technical visit to ASM’s Korean Metals Plant and carries an MMTA member discount. Exact October dates had not been published by the organiser at the time of writing — check Metal Events’ site directly before booking travel, since this lands in the same month and city as Project Blue’s own Seoul forum without a confirmed overlap check yet possible.

Rare Earth Events October 2026: Also on the Calendar

The month closes 28–29 October with the Critical Minerals Expo & Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, combined for the first time with the Battery Recycling Conference & Expo and E-Waste World Conference & Expo at the Cobb Galleria Centre. Free to attend, the event expects 1,500+ attendees and features a dedicated rare earths market outlook session alongside a fireside discussion between ERI and Cyclic Materials on rare earth recovery from electronic waste.

For the full year’s calendar including events already held in 2026, see REM’s rare earth mining events hub, and last month’s roundup at Rare Earth Events September 2026.