Drone wars deepen West’s critical minerals squeeze

The rapid rise of mass drone warfare is creating a new source of defence demand for gallium, germanium and rare earths, minerals whose supply chains are already heavily dependent on China, according to BMO Capital Markets.

About 15 million drones are expected to be deployed in the Russia-Ukraine war this year, while governments and military alliances have pledged about $150 billion (C$208 billion) to develop drone and counter-drone capabilities over the past two years, BMO estimates in a report on Tuesday. It identifies gallium, germanium and magnetic rare earths as among the most important critical minerals used to build military drones.

“It is safe to say that the world has entered the era of mass drone warfare,” BMO metals and mining analysts said in the report on the sector. It “represents arguably the biggest technological shift in modern warfare in decades.” 

The scale is already visible beyond BMO’s estimates. Ukraine aims to produce more than seven million drones this year, up from four million in 2025, according to its defence ministry. NATO in July committed more than $40 billion over five years to counter-drone capabilities and aims to train five times as many drone operators by the end of 2027.

The spending adds another source of demand for commodities already considered strategically important for electric vehicles, semiconductors, telecommunications and other advanced technologies. The potential vulnerability is particularly acute because markets for gallium, germanium and heavy rare earths are small and their processing is concentrated in China.

China choke point

Gallium nitride is used in high-frequency and power semiconductors important to communications and radar systems, while germanium is used in infrared optics, fibre optics and semiconductors. Rare-earth permanent magnets provide the lift and torque in electric drone motors.

The Washington, D.C.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies identified gallium-nitride chips and rare-earth magnets among the principal chokepoints in the drone supply chain in a December study. Small electric drone motors can each contain about 5 to 15 grams of neodymium-iron-boron magnets, meaning consumption can scale into tonnes as fleets reach millions of aircraft, CSIS said.

Counter-drone systems create demand of their own. BMO identifies germanium, gallium and heavy rare earths as particularly important to technologies designed to detect, track and defeat drones.

China produced 98% of the world’s primary refined gallium, 77% of refined germanium and 68% of mined rare earths in 2023, according to a U.S. Geological Survey study released in June.

That dominance has increasingly become a security concern. Beijing imposed export licensing requirements on gallium and germanium in 2023 and banned exports of both metals to the United States in December 2024. It suspended the U.S. ban in November 2025 until Nov. 27 this year.

The disruption was nevertheless significant. U.S. imports of germanium metal fell an estimated 67% last year, while European germanium metal prices rose to $5,380 per kg in October from $3,150 in January, USGS said.

Gallium presents a similar problem. China accounted for 99% of primary low-purity gallium production last year, according to USGS, while the United States produced none and remained entirely dependent on imports for reported consumption.

Canada supply

The Western push to loosen those dependencies could benefit several Canadian-listed companies.

Teck Resources (TSX: TECK.A, TECK.B; NYSE: TECK) signed an agreement with Ottawa in July supporting as much as C$850 million of potential investment at its Trail smelting and refining complex in British Columbia to expand germanium, gallium and antimony production.

Canada Growth Fund could invest as much as C$400 million directly into the facility. The plan could double Trail’s existing germanium and antimony production capacity and add gallium production, while giving the federal government potential offtake rights to part of the output.

Trail is already a commercial producer of germanium, recovered as a byproduct from zinc concentrates.

Rio Tinto (LSE, ASX, NYSE: RIO) is pursuing another potential Canadian source. The miner plans to start a gallium pilot plant next year at its Complexe Jonquière in Saguenay, Que., using material already present in the bauxite processed by its Vaudreuil alumina refinery.

A planned demonstration operation could produce as much as 4 tonnes of gallium annually. Rio says a subsequent commercial-scale plant could reach 40 tonnes a year, about 5% of current global output.

World primary gallium production totals only a little more than 700 tonnes annually and currently comes entirely from outside North America, Rio said.

Heavy rare earths

Heavy rare earths such as dysprosium and terbium present another challenge. They are used in high-performance permanent magnets, particularly where magnets must retain their properties at elevated temperatures.

Neo Performance Materials (TSX: NEO; US-OTC: NOPMF) commissioned a small-scale heavy rare-earth separation line at its Silmet facility in Estonia in April. It has produced separated dysprosium and terbium process solutions from mixed rare-earth carbonate feed entirely within Europe.

The Toronto-based company on Aug. 31 also announced an agreement with France’s Carester to secure heavy rare-earth oxides for its European magnet manufacturing operations in exchange for recycled magnet material and separation feedstock.

Developer Aclara Resources (TSX: ARA) is meanwhile advancing the Carina ionic-clay rare earths project in Brazil. A feasibility study outlines average annual production of 156 tonnes of dysprosium, 27 tonnes of terbium and 1,191 tonnes of neodymium-praseodymium over an 18-year mine life, with operations targeted for 2028.

Consumption

Drones are unlikely by themselves to rival electric vehicles or electronics as a source of overall mineral consumption. Their importance lies instead in the speed at which military demand can emerge in markets where global output is measured in hundreds or thousands of tonnes and alternative Western supply remains scarce.

Modern warfare also consumes drones differently from most civilian technologies. Rather than remaining in service for years, inexpensive battlefield drones are frequently destroyed after a single mission, requiring factories to continually replace them.

That wartime attrition is already affecting demand for more conventional metals. Ivanhoe Mines (TSX: IVN; US-OTC: IVPAF) founder Robert Friedland pointed to copper consumption during an April interview at the FT Commodities Global Summit in Lausanne, Switzerland.

“War is like really stupid, you know, because it chews up astronomical amounts of metal that’s frequently not recyclable,” Friedland said. “When a shell blows up in Ukraine, boom, the copper in that shell is scattered all over hell and gone. It’s very hard to recycle it.”