Turkey is moving to transform its Beylikova rare earth project from pilot operations into full industrial-scale production with a planned $600 million investment across three facilities, as Ankara positions itself to enter the global top five rare earth producers and capture value beyond raw material extraction.
Energy and Natural Resources Minister Alparslan Bayraktar announced the investment commitment while highlighting the scale of the Beylikova deposit in Eskişehir Province, which the Energy Ministry describes as holding 694 million tonnes of rare earth elements — the world’s second-largest reserve after China’s Bayan Obo deposit at 800 million tonnes. “Beylikova is a project the whole world is watching. We aim to rank among the top five globally in rare earth elements,” Bayraktar said.
The three planned facilities are expected to create close to 1,500 jobs in Eskişehir, a city the minister described as already a central hub for mining and industry and one that hosts globally significant boron reserves. The new investments, he said, could push Eskişehir into a leading position in Turkey’s broader industrial landscape, with mining acting as a driver of wider economic activity.
Bayraktar signalled a clear strategic direction beyond extraction, emphasising that Turkey’s approach to its rare earth endowment must generate value at every stage of the supply chain. “We should not limit ourselves to raw materials. We need to transform them into intermediate and final products,” he said — a position consistent with the broader shift among mineral-rich nations to capture processing and manufacturing value rather than exporting raw ore.
Environmental standards and worker safety were also cited as central priorities for the project, with the minister stressing that mining activities must align with environmental requirements rather than operate at their expense — a consideration that will be important for attracting Western industrial partners and offtake agreements.
