Reviewed August 2026 against MP Materials’ quarterly results releases, the Federal Register’s Final 2025 List of Critical Minerals, and the July 2025 U.S. Department of Defense price-protection agreement.

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NdPr is shorthand for a neodymium–praseodymium mixture — most often a mixed oxide of roughly 75% Nd₂O₃ and 25% Pr₆O₁₁ by mass — that is the feedstock for NdFeB permanent magnets. It is not a mineral you can pick up; it is a separated, saleable product that comes out of a rare earth refinery several steps after the ore. The name exists because neodymium and praseodymium are so chemically alike that separating them costs money most magnet makers refuse to pay, so the industry sells and prices them together.

That single fact explains almost everything confusing about NdPr: why it has a price but no ticker, why “NdPr” and “Nd Pr” turn up in mining announcements rather than mineralogy textbooks, and why the number you find quoted can differ by $40 per kilogram depending on which of four different products someone means.

What NdPr Means, and What “Nd Pr” Refers To

Neodymium is element 60 (Nd); praseodymium is element 59 (Pr). Both are light rare earth elements, both sit in the lanthanide row, and both were literally discovered as one substance: the mineral mixture historically called didymium was split into “green twin” (praseodymium) and “new twin” (neodymium) in 1885. When you see “Nd Pr” written as two separate symbols, it is the same product — the two elements quoted as a pair.

Both elements are named individually on the U.S. critical minerals list. The Final 2025 List of Critical Minerals, published by the U.S. Geological Survey in the Federal Register on 7 November 2025, names 60 mineral commodities, with neodymium and praseodymium listed as separate entries alongside 14 other rare earths. That notice also describes the method behind the list: an economic-effects assessment running more than 1,200 trade-disruption scenarios across 84 mineral commodities and 402 industries, plus a test of whether a commodity depends on a sole domestic producer. The list is revised on a multi-year cycle, so check the Federal Register notice itself rather than a summary of it.

Why the two are never fully separated

Nd³⁺ and Pr³⁺ have almost identical ionic radii and near-identical solvent-extraction behaviour. Splitting them requires many additional mixer-settler stages, and for the dominant end use — NdFeB magnets — the split buys nothing, because praseodymium substitutes for neodymium in the magnet lattice at similar performance. So refineries stop at a combined NdPr product. Praseodymium is separated out only for uses that need it alone, such as didymium welding glass and certain catalysts. The technical detail of how those separation trains are configured is covered in our breakdown of rare earth separation methods.

Is NdPr a Mineral? The Honest Answer Is No

Searches for “NdPr mineral” are looking for something that does not exist as a natural species. There is no mineral with the formula NdPr. What exists are minerals that host neodymium and praseodymium in their crystal structures, from which an NdPr product is later manufactured:

• Bastnäsite — (Ce,La,Nd)CO₃F, a fluorocarbonate. The host at Mountain Pass, California, and the main global source of light rare earths.
• Monazite — (Ce,La,Nd,Th)PO₄, a phosphate. Carries thorium, which is why monazite streams attract radiological handling requirements.
• Xenotime — YPO₄, weighted to yttrium and the heavy rare earths; a minor NdPr contributor.
• Ion-adsorption clays — weathered granite regolith where rare earths sit adsorbed on clay surfaces rather than locked in a lattice, which makes them leachable at ambient temperature.

A useful discipline when reading any exploration announcement: an assay reported as TREO (total rare earth oxide) tells you nothing about NdPr value on its own. Ask for the NdPr-to-TREO ratio. A bastnäsite carbonatite commonly reports NdPr at a small fraction of TREO, because cerium and lanthanum — the two cheapest rare earths — dominate the basket. Two deposits with identical TREO grades can differ several-fold in revenue per tonne on that ratio alone. That distinction survives every price cycle, which is why it belongs on your checklist rather than the headline grade. For the wider picture on where these hosts occur domestically, see our roundup of rare earth deposits in the US.

Four Different Products Are Sold as “NdPr”

Most price confusion traces to this table. When someone quotes an NdPr number, establish which row they are on before comparing it to anything.

The oxide-to-metal factor, so you can check it

This is arithmetic, not a market opinion, and it does not go stale. Using standard atomic weights (Nd 144.242, Pr 140.908, O 15.999):

• Nd₂O₃ is 288.484 g of Nd in 336.481 g of oxide → 85.74% Nd.
• Pr₆O₁₁ is 845.448 g of Pr in 1,021.44 g of oxide → 82.77% Pr.
• A 75/25 blend by mass → (0.75 × 0.8574) + (0.25 × 0.8277) = 85.0% contained metal.

So contained metal in an oxide quote costs the oxide price divided by 0.850, a factor of 1.176×, before you add electrolytic reduction cost and yield loss. If a metal quote sits below 1.176× the oxide quote, one of the two numbers is on a different basis or a different date.

The NdPr Price: What Number to Use, and How to Back It Out Yourself

There is no exchange contract for NdPr. No LME or COMEX listing exists, so there is no free, continuous, auditable spot price the way there is for copper. What exists instead is a set of anchors, each with a date attached.

The contract floor. On 10 July 2025, MP Materials and the U.S. Department of Defense announced a partnership that, per the company’s release, establishes a $110 per kilogram price floor for NdPr over a 10-year term, alongside a $400 million DoD preferred-stock purchase, a $150 million DoD loan for heavy rare earth separation at Mountain Pass, a $1.0 billion bank financing commitment, and a “10X Facility” expected to begin commissioning in 2028 that would take total U.S. magnet capacity to about 10,000 metric tons per year. Every magnet from that facility is committed under a 10-year offtake.

The market level the floor was set against. The Federation of American Scientists, in an analysis published 15 July 2025, described the $110/kg floor as nearly double the then-prevailing market price of about $60/kg, and put MP’s magnet capacity trajectory at 3,000 to 10,000 metric tons.

The method: derive the benchmark from disclosed price-protection income

Because the floor pays MP the difference between $110/kg and a benchmark quarterly average volume-weighted price, the company’s disclosed price-protection income divided by NdPr tons sold gives you the per-kilogram shortfall — and $110 minus that shortfall approximates the benchmark. Two filings make this checkable:

• Q1 2026 results: $132.9 million of consolidated revenue and PPA income, of which $90.6 million was revenue — a residual of $42.3 million PPA income on 1,006 metric tons of NdPr sold. That is $42.05/kg, implying a benchmark near $68.0/kg.
• Q2 2026 results, dated 6 August 2026: $17.6 million PPA income on 1,006 metric tons sold. That is $17.49/kg, implying a benchmark near $92.5/kg — a rise of about 36% over one quarter.

The two releases reconcile: Q1 revenue of $90.6 million plus Q2 revenue of $108.5 million equals the $199.1 million half-year figure, and $42.3 million plus $17.6 million matches half-year PPA income of $59.9 million. Two caveats you must resolve before relying on the output: MP does not publish the benchmark index it settles against, and the settlement volume may not equal reported sales volume. Both are addressed in the quarterly Form 10-Q, so read the price-protection note there rather than trusting the back-of-envelope. The method itself is durable — it re-runs every quarter with two numbers from a single press release.

Read that waterfall as a warning as much as a bridge: 14% of the quarter’s top line came from the floor mechanism, not from the market. Any model of NdPr producer economics that ignores the price-protection line will overstate market-derived revenue.

Work out the implied benchmark for any period

Enter the two figures from a producer’s release and your own NdPr requirement.

Assumptions and exclusions: this treats settlement tonnage as equal to reported sales tonnage and assumes the whole price-protection amount relates to that tonnage in that period — verify both against the producer's Form 10-Q. The metal-basis option applies only the 0.850 stoichiometric factor; it excludes reduction cost, yield loss, freight, tariffs, purity premiums and any contract discount to benchmark. It is not a quotation.

Who Actually Produces NdPr Oxide Outside China

The short list of Western NdPr oxide producers is genuinely short, and MP Materials' Mountain Pass operation in San Bernardino County, California is the one with quarterly public disclosure in U.S. dollars. Its full-year 2025 results reported 2,599 metric tons of NdPr oxide produced (up 101% year over year, implying about 1,293 t in 2024), 1,994 metric tons sold (up 75%), 50,692 metric tons of REO in concentrate (up 12%), revenue of $224.4 million against $203.9 million in 2024, and $51 million of price-protection income under the $110/kg floor. The company also stated it ceased all sales into China to comply with the agreement.

Two quarters into 2026 the pattern is not a straight line up. Q1 2026 delivered a record 917 metric tons of NdPr oxide and 12,983 metric tons of REO in concentrate; Q2 2026 came in at 840 metric tons of NdPr and 11,072 metric tons of REO, down 16% year over year. Separation throughput and concentrate feed do not move in lockstep, which is exactly the kind of detail that gets flattened out of summaries.

The more telling divergence is between what gets made and what gets sold. Sales grew far faster than production over the same twelve months, which means volumes are coming off inventory as well as out of the plant — a trend that cannot continue indefinitely.

Where NdPr Sits in U.S. Policy

Three documents define the U.S. policy frame around NdPr, and all three are worth reading in the original rather than in summary:

1. Executive Order 14272, signed 15 April 2025 and published in the Federal Register as document 2025-06836, directing a Section 232 national-security investigation into imports of processed critical minerals and derivative products, with a draft interim report due within 90 days and a final report within 180 days of initiation.
2. The accompanying White House fact sheet, dated 15 April 2025, which names heavy rare earth metals among the commodities of concern and lists the downstream systems at stake — jet engines, missile guidance systems, radar and secure communications equipment.
3. The Final 2025 List of Critical Minerals (7 November 2025), which puts neodymium and praseodymium on the statutory list as individually named commodities.

For the current supply-chain share figures — who mines, separates and magnetises what proportion of global rare earths — the Congressional Research Service maintains a short In Focus product, Rare Earth Elements and U.S. Supply Chains (IF13171), which is revised as the underlying data changes. Read the percentages off the current revision of that PDF rather than from any article, including this one: the mining, separation and magnet-manufacturing shares are all different numbers and they move.

Rock to Magnet: The Eight Steps NdPr Passes Through

Each step is a separate business with separate economics, which is why a country can mine rare earths and still import magnets.

1. Mine and crush — bastnäsite or monazite ore reduced for liberation.
2. Beneficiate — flotation, magnetic and gravity separation to a mixed rare earth concentrate. MP reported 50,692 t of REO in concentrate for 2025 at this stage.
3. Crack and leach — acid or caustic attack to put rare earths into solution; thorium and uranium are managed here.
4. Solvent extraction, group split — cerium and lanthanum removed from the mid-heavy fraction.
5. Solvent extraction, NdPr cut — the stage that yields NdPr oxide. This is where MP's 917 t and 840 t quarterly figures are booked.
6. Optional Nd/Pr split — extra stages, only for uses that need one element alone.
7. Metal reduction and strip-casting — oxide to NdPr metal or alloy, where the 1.176× stoichiometric step-up applies.
8. Sinter, machine, coat — NdFeB blocks and finished parts, with dysprosium or terbium added for high-temperature grades.

The 10X Facility described in the July 2025 DoD release addresses steps 7 and 8, not steps 1 and 2 — the bottleneck in the U.S. chain has been separation and magnetisation capacity rather than rock.

Screening Ground for NdPr-Bearing Hosts

Carbonatites, alkaline intrusive complexes and weathered granite regolith — the three settings that host most NdPr — all leave surface expressions that multispectral and hyperspectral satellite data can pick up before anyone mobilises a rig. Farmonaut's satellite based mineral detection service screens large licence blocks for alteration signatures, structural controls and regolith depth, then ranks targets so drilling money goes to the highest-confidence ground first. The output includes prospectivity heatmaps, indicative grade zonation and depth-and-geometry estimates; the approach is set out in this satellite-driven 3D mineral prospectivity mapping overview.

A Verification Checklist That Outlives the Numbers

Every figure above carries a date and will move. This procedure will not.

1. Fix the product. Oxide, metal, alloy or magnet block? Apply the 1.176× factor before comparing oxide to metal.
2. Fix the date and the assessor. An NdPr number with no date and no named source is unusable. Price-reporting agencies publish assessments on subscription; producer releases are free.
3. Back out the benchmark. Take the most recent quarterly release from a producer with a price-protection agreement, divide the disclosed protection income by NdPr tons sold, and subtract from the floor.
4. Check the contract note. Confirm settlement volume basis and benchmark definition in the Form 10-Q before quoting your derived figure to anyone.
5. For deposits, demand the NdPr:TREO ratio, not just TREO grade.
6. Confirm the policy status. Re-read the current Federal Register critical-minerals notice; the list is revised on a cycle.
7. Separate rock risk from processing risk. Ask which of the eight steps a project actually performs, and who does the rest.

FAQ

What does NdPr stand for?

Neodymium (Nd) and praseodymium (Pr), sold as a combined product — most commonly a mixed oxide of about 75% Nd₂O₃ and 25% Pr₆O₁₁ by mass, which works out to 85.0% contained rare earth metal.

What is NdPr used for?

Overwhelmingly, NdFeB permanent magnets for traction motors, wind turbine generators, hard drives, robotics, and defence systems including the guidance and radar equipment named in the April 2025 White House fact sheet. Praseodymium alone also goes into didymium glass and catalysts.

What is the NdPr price?

There is no exchange-listed spot price. The verifiable anchors as of August 2026 are the $110/kg 10-year floor in the July 2025 MP Materials–DoD agreement, the roughly $60/kg market level the Federation of American Scientists cited in July 2025, and benchmark levels of about $68.0/kg (Q1 2026) and $92.5/kg (Q2 2026) implied by MP's disclosed price-protection income. Re-derive it each quarter using the calculator above.

Is NdPr a mineral?

No. It is a refined product. The minerals that host it are bastnäsite, monazite, xenotime and ion-adsorption clays.

Why aren't neodymium and praseodymium separated?

Their ionic radii and solvent-extraction behaviour are nearly identical, so the split needs many extra stages — and for magnets, praseodymium substitutes for neodymium at similar performance, so the separation adds cost without adding value.

Where can I get a fresher number than the ones on this page?

Producer quarterly releases (MP Materials publishes in U.S. dollars per kilogram terms via its price-protection disclosures), the current CRS In Focus product for supply-chain shares, and the Federal Register for policy status. For a specific project or licence block, contact our team with your coordinates and target commodity.