What Is NdPr Oxide?

NdPr oxide is a mixed oxide of neodymium and praseodymium, the two rare earths that make up most of the rare earth content of a permanent magnet. It is the product most rare earth miners are really selling, and its price sets the value of most rare earth projects.

When a rare earth company talks about prices, offtake deals or a new separation plant, it usually means NdPr. Cerium and lanthanum make up most of the tonnes in a typical deposit. NdPr is where most of the money is.

What exactly is NdPr oxide?

NdPr oxide is a powder made of neodymium oxide and praseodymium oxide that have not been split apart. The usual mix is about three parts neodymium to one part praseodymium, according to the US Department of Energy, which calls the unseparated pair didymium. The US Geological Survey tracks it as its own product, sold at a purity of at least 99%.

Neodymium is element 60 and praseodymium is element 59. Both are light rare earths, and both do the same job in a magnet, which is why the trade treats them as one material.

Why are neodymium and praseodymium sold together?

They are sold together because they are very hard to separate and magnet makers rarely need them apart. The DOE says the two have such similar chemistry that splitting them can take 30 mixer-settler stages, the tanks used in solvent extraction. For most magnets that extra cost isn't worth it, so plants stop at the mixed NdPr product.

Separated neodymium or praseodymium oxide is still made for uses that need a different ratio. Their prices stay close to NdPr's. In 2025 neodymium oxide averaged about US$73 a kilogram and praseodymium oxide about US$74, the USGS estimates.

What is NdPr used for?

NdPr is used almost entirely to make neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) magnets, the strongest permanent magnets sold. Magnets are the leading use of rare earths worldwide, the USGS estimates. The DOE lists wind turbine generators and the traction motors in electric and hybrid cars as uses that need these magnets. They also go into phones, power tools, sensors and defence equipment.

A sintered NdFeB magnet is roughly 30% rare earth by weight, 69% iron and 1% boron. The rare earth part is small by weight but not by cost: the DOE estimates it accounts for over 90% of a magnet's material costs. Our guide Rare Earth Magnets Explained covers how the magnets are made.

What does NdPr oxide sell for?

NdPr oxide averaged an estimated US$69 per kilogram in 2025, according to the USGS. That was up from US$55 in 2024 but still well below the 2022 peak. The table shows five years of annual averages.

Source: USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026. Free on board, 99% minimum purity, based on Argus Media prices.

Big swings are normal for NdPr. In the price spike that followed 2010, NdPr oxide rose to more than 11 times its January 2010 level, the DOE found. A miner's results can move a long way on price alone, even when its output barely changes. Our metal prices page lists the latest USGS averages for other rare earth oxides.

Why does NdPr decide what a rare earth project is worth?

NdPr decides a project's value because it is usually the most valuable product in the ore, even though it is a small share of the tonnes. MP Materials, which runs the Mountain Pass mine in California, says in its 2024 annual report that "NdPr represents a significant portion of the economic value of our rare earth concentrate."

The same report shows how small that share is by weight. In Mountain Pass concentrate, NdPr is about 15.7% of the total rare earth oxide. Cerium is 50.2% and lanthanum 32.3%, and both sell for a few dollars a kilogram or less. MP also notes that NdPr prices are set mainly by indices in China.

Who produces NdPr outside China?

Two companies make up a large share of rare earth production outside China and Burma: Lynas Rare Earths and MP Materials, the DOE says. Lynas mines at Mount Weld in Australia and separates its concentrate into neodymium and praseodymium oxides at its plant in Malaysia. MP Materials mines and separates at Mountain Pass.

A few other companies separate NdPr or plan to, and several are listed on our rare earth stocks page under refiners and developers. Separation is the hard step, and our guide How Rare Earths Are Processed explains why.

What is the US$110 NdPr price floor?

The price floor is a minimum price of US$110 per kilogram for MP Materials' NdPr, backed by the US Department of Defense and announced in July 2025. Under the agreement in MP's SEC filing, the department pays the company the shortfall each quarter whenever the market price is below US$110. When the price is above it, the department receives 30% of the excess.

MP's announcement describes it as a 10-year commitment, alongside a 10-year deal to buy magnets. For scale, US$110 is about 60% above the 2025 average market price. The USGS also lists 300 tons of NdPr oxide among the possible purchases for the US National Defense Stockpile in fiscal 2025.

The floor applies to one company. Other producers still sell at market prices, which is why NdPr price news moves rare earth shares so much.

How do you read NdPr in a company announcement?

Most rare earth companies report NdPr as a share of total rare earth oxide, or TREO. To work out the NdPr grade, multiply the two. In a made-up example, a deposit grading 2% TREO with NdPr at 20% of TREO holds about 0.4% NdPr oxide.

Two deposits with the same TREO grade can be worth very different amounts if one has twice the NdPr share. Check whether the company also reports dysprosium and terbium, which sell for far more per kilogram. Our guide How to Read a Rare Earth Resource Estimate goes through the rest of a resource report, and What Are Rare Earth Elements? covers the basics.

Sources

• US Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026: Rare Earths
• US Department of Energy, Rare Earth Permanent Magnets: Supply Chain Deep Dive Assessment (2022)
• MP Materials, Form 8-K filed with the SEC (July 2025)
• MP Materials, Form 10-K for 2024 filed with the SEC
• MP Materials, public-private partnership with the Department of Defense (July 10, 2025)

Related guides

• China Rare Earth Export ControlsWhat China restricted in 2025, what it suspended, and what is still in force.
• How Rare Earths Are ProcessedFrom ore to concentrate to separated oxide to metal: the steps and who does them.
• Rare Earth RecyclingWhy so few rare earths are recycled today, how magnets are recovered, and how much recycling could supply.
• What Are Rare Earth Elements?Seventeen metals, most of them not rare at all. What they are and what they are used for.