Lynas to Build Rare Earth Waste Treatment Plant in Malaysia

A Malaysian minister said that Malaysia has approved an application from Australian rare earth miner - Lynas Corp, to establish a permanent disposal facility for waste treatment. According to a report by the mining.com website.

According to The Edge Markets report, Khairy Jamaluddin, science, technology, and innovation minister of the Pahang State Government of Malaysia, stated that the miner, the world's only major producer of rare earths outside China, can now proceed with construction of the waste plant on the site.

In August last year, the Sydney-based company was able to renew the operating license of its processing plant in Malaysia for six months, subject to conditions that included identifying a site for a permanent facility to store its low-level radioactive waste. Lynas was also asked to propose a plan to establish cracking and leaching facilities overseas within four years of the license renewal.

The company stated that it has selected Kalgoorie, Western Australia as the construction site for the plant, and it is expected to carry out the first step of concentrate processing in 2021. The cracking and leaching plant is expected to be completed in late 2022 or early 2023. Lynas also stated that it planned to explore opportunities for the next stage of rare earth processing (upstream solvent extraction) in the same state, where its Mt Weld mine is located.

Lynas controls more than 10 percent of the world's rare earths market and secured funding from the US government last week to build a 50 million Australian dollars (36 million US dollars) processing plant in Texas. The contract came amid growing concerns in Washington that China could use its dominance of the rare earths supply chain to pressure US arms suppliers. Beijing threatened in July to impose sanctions on American aerospace, defense, arms, and security provider Lockheed Martin.

The processing plant of Lynas in Malaysia will be the world's only large-scale producer of separation products for medium and heavy rare earths outside of China, which currently accounts for 70 percent of global production.

In the $14 billion global markets, China also controls more than 60 percent of rare earth used in magnetic materials and electric motors that power communications, wind turbines, electric vehicles, and military equipment.

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