Platinum Pulse
Jamaica Finds Rare Earth Elements Worth 400 Billion USD
Jamaica is sitting on rare earth elements valued at up to 400 billion US dollars. But the real story is not the number. It is where the material actually is, and who is already making money from it.
For sixty years, Jamaica legally treated it as garbage.
Roughly 34 million tons of Jamaican-origin bauxite residue is not in Jamaica at all. It sits in ponds at Gramercy, Louisiana, beside the last operating alumina refinery in the United States, a plant built in 1957 specifically to refine Jamaican ore shipped out of Discovery Bay. In June 2026 the US Department of Energy and the Department of War committed 96.9 million dollars to a project extracting rare earths from that pile. Ground was broken this summer. Louisiana's governor signed an executive order fast-tracking the permits in August 2026.
Jamaica has never been paid one cent of royalty on any of it.
Then on 13 May 2026, Jamaica's Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining stood in the House of Representatives and said something that should have made international headlines. He believes Jamaica's Mining Act royalty obligation follows that mud across the ocean. That the duty to report the minerals and pay does not stop at the shoreline. He has asked the Attorney General for a formal opinion and instructed his legal team to amend the Mining Act to place it beyond doubt.
There is no clean precedent for that claim anywhere in international mining law.
In this documentary we go through all of it. The geology that makes Jamaican red mud roughly 25 times richer in rare earths than average continental crust. The 2013 pilot plant at Hope Gardens that actually worked, and collapsed anyway. The Geophysx survey that mapped an entire country. The China export controls counting down to 10 November 2026. The 1974 bauxite levy and what it should have taught Jamaica. And an honest, unflinching breakdown of whether 400 billion dollars is a real valuation or a gross in-ground figure that would never survive a feasibility study.
The answer to that last question is not what most videos on this subject will tell you. It is more useful.
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN
Why rare earth elements are not actually rare, and why that is the whole problem
Why Jamaica's bauxite residue is among the most enriched ever assessed anywhere on earth
How 34 million tons of Jamaican material ended up in Louisiana ponds
What the US federal government has committed to extracting it and when production starts
The legal argument Jamaica is preparing and why every bauxite nation on earth is watching
Whether the 400 billion dollar figure survives actual scrutiny
The five checkpoints that decide whether Jamaica captures this or loses it again
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Should Jamaica press the Louisiana royalty claim, even at the risk of a fight with Washington and with companies that employ thousands of Jamaicans? Or should it trade the claim for investment and technology transfer and take the certain smaller win?
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SOURCES AND FURTHER READING
Jamaica Gleaner, Renewed drive to benefit from red mud, 14 May 2026
Sectoral Debate Presentation, Hon. Floyd Green, Parliament of Jamaica, 13 May 2026
Statement to Parliament on Rare Earth Elements, Hon. Phillip Paulwell, Parliament of Jamaica
Jamaica Information Service, Large Deposits Of Rare Earth Elements
ICSOBA Travaux 53, bauxite residue governance in Jamaica, 2024
US Department of Energy, critical minerals award announcement, 2 June 2026
Louisiana Economic Development, ElementUSA investment announcement, January 2026
Office of the Governor of Louisiana, executive orders on critical minerals permitting, August 2026
Center for Strategic and International Studies, rare earth export restrictions analysis, 2026
Geophysx Jamaica Ltd, rare earth deposit announcement, March 2023
Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada, convention remarks, March 2026
Jamaica Observer, bauxite earnings forecast coverage, 2026
Associated Press, Jamaica rare earth pilot plant coverage, 2013
US Geological Survey, Rare Earths Statistics and Information
DISCLAIMER
This video is produced for informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute financial, investment, legal or professional advice of any kind. All figures, dates and statements are drawn from publicly available sources and are accurate to the best of our research as of the date of publication.
#Jamaica #RareEarth #RedMud #Bauxite
Published Sep 23, 2026
