Rare earths junior Mkango has delivered the most successful market performance of any miner listed in London so far this year with the shares up more than 115%. It has achieved a similar advance in Canada.

The tariff bust up between the US and China is a key factor, but that's not enough to explain its runaway success.

Mkango has outperformed peers such as Pensana, Lynas and even Aussie favourite Arafura Rare Earths.

Mkango's stand-outs are said to be near-term production of magnets from its flagship rare earths plant near Birmingham and another in Germany, forecast by end-2025. Almost uniquely, both factories will use rare earth feedstock from recycled material to make powerful magnets that are indispensable for use in motors, electronics, wind turbines and missiles.  Recycling operations are less energy intensive and leave a lighter carbon footprint.

Policy makers in Washington, London and Brussels like Mkango's business model. It owns the almost fully-permitted Songwe Hills rare earths mine in Malawi, expected to feed into the Mkango-controlled Pulawy separation plant under construction in Poland. 

Pulawy is expected to process rare earths carbonate shipped from the mine in Africa and turn it into oxides. 

Mkango has already received $100 million in public funding, with possibly more to come since Pulawy has been deemed a strategic project under the EU Critical Raw Materials Act. 

But for many, the exciting bit is that Mkango will both extract rare earths and develop mid-stream processing operations that up to now have been concentrated in China. 

In the US, it has partnered with CoTec to build a third rare earths recycling plant where first production is slated for 2027.

CEO Will Dawes said: "The capability to supply either oxides or magnets or both to customers puts us in a unique position, differentiating us from other rare earth developers.

"We are not simply a miner but also a recycler and mid-stream operator, too".

Sergey Raevskiy, metals and mining analyst at SP Angel said Mkango's recycling business "was expected to be economic at lower MREO [magnet rare earth oxide prices], as well as permanent magnet prices when compared to upstream operations". 

Another reason for the rise in Mkango's share price stems from an announcement in January that it plans to spin off parts of the company onto Nasdaq via a Spac merger. At a time when China has placed restrictions on a suite of rare earth exports and banned altogether overseas sales of gallium – crucial for military purposes – investors have spotted emerging investment opportunities. 

USA Rare Earth which listed on Nasdaq earlier this month has seen its shares rise 104%. Mkango's stock has benefited from similar enthusiasm.

SP Angel's Sergey Raevskiy said: "Patented HPMS (Hydrogen Processing of Metal Scrap) tech developed in the University of Birmingham allows recycling MREO containing permanent magnets from spent equipment into new magnets allowing the firm to by-pass the whole rare earth processing related supply chain (from ore to magnet products) controlled by China."

Is the market getting ahead of itself? We will have to wait and see. But it's as well to point out the underlying prices for rare earths have been less highly charged than those of the miners. Magnet rare earth oxides, as quoted by Asian Metal, showed Nd, Pd and Dy were up only 5% in the year to date, although Tb was 22% to the good. 

China's dominance of the sector means its position as price-setter remains unchallenged – for now.