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Lynas growth looms large

ynas Rare Earths Ltd is on track to achieve FCC have come back to pre-COVID levels.
Lrecord sales and revenue in a calendar “Even though we’ve been running at con-
year despite production only running at 75% strained production – about 75% of our ca-
capacity due to COVID-19 restrictions in Ma- pacity – we’ve had our best year so far, and
laysia. the last two quarters in particular, I think gives
The world’s leading rare earths producer us some glimpses of what our potential is.”
outside of China posted new quarterly bench- Lynas continues to take giant strides to-
marks for sales (4,758t REO for $185.9 million wards having its Kalgoorlie rare earths down- Kam Leung
in revenue) and cash collection ($192 million) stream processing facility operational by mid- “This facility is going to be the first down-
over the three months to June. It continues a 2023. The company recently received EPA stream rare earth processing in Western
remarkable recent run for Lynas, which has approval to undertake small-scale prelimi- Australia. It gives us the pathway for growth,
added more than $4 billion to its market cap nary site works while completing the project’s it gives us the opportunity to treat other third-
since October last year. final design. party rare earths feed and also opens up the
Standing in for managing director Amanda Some 10ha has been cleared on the site possibility for further downstream processing
Lacaze for the second year running, Lynas located just west of the Kalgoorlie light indus- of rare earths in Australia.”
upstream vice-president Kam Leung told Dig- trial area. This will allow Lynas to take delivery Lynas is also awaiting the results of a 1km
gers & Dealers the rare earths market contin- of some of the equipment which has been diamond hole recently drilled into its Mt Weld
ued to be resilient in the face of the pandemic. built, including the rotary kiln. open pit mine before launching into metallur-
“We’re seeing some really good market Leung said the Kalgoorlie facility was es- gical test work.
growth in many sectors, including electric sentially a mirror design of the Malaysian “We believe Mount Weld has the potential
vehicles, wind power generation, consumer plant without the solvent extraction and cal- to underpin some long-term growth and we
electronics and then also smart homes,” Le- cining tunnel furnaces. believe our Kalgoorlie operations can be-
ung said. “It was originally planned as growth capac- come the hub for rare earths processing and
“There is strong demand for our NdPr prod- ity, but it’s grown to be replacement capacity a key cog in our future growth plans,” Leung
ucts and also strong pricing. Some of our oth- and it’s going be one of the pillars of our busi- said.
er rare earths products have recovered, so ness and offers us the platform to expand our
things like catalysts for automotives and also production,” he said. – Michael Washbourne

Hastings prepares to launch NdPr that no other project in the world has,”
“We have an unrivalled composition of

Reid said. “We have class-leading rates of
spiring rare earths producer Hastings beneficiation through our concentrator and
ATechnology Metals Ltd has received we have a low capex [$519 million] relative
conditional approval to develop a hydrometal- to our peers.”
lurgical plant in the Ashburton North Strategic Other key financials include NPV of $549
Industrial Area (ANSIA), near Onslow on the million, IRR of 21% and payback in 3.4 years.
Pilbara coast. A further revision of the project economics is
ANSIA, about 430km by road from Hast- due in Q4 2021.
ings’ Yangibana project, is already home to Having raised $100 million in equity earlier
Chevron Corp’s Wheatstone and BHP Ltd’s this year, Hastings is now working with vari-
Macedon gas projects. ous parties to secure the debt component of
Hastings will now work with the West the financing package. The company contin-
Australian Government to finalise the lease ues to progress discussions with NAIF and
agreements for the 78ha land parcel and se- other commercial lenders, having already
cure final board approval from the state land obtained in-principle support from Finnish
and development corporation. Andrew Reid export credit agency Finnvera and German
Speaking at Diggers & Dealers last month, state bank KfW IPEX-BANK.
Hastings chief operating officer Andrew FEED over the last 18 months. We’ve been Hastings has also signed offtake agree-
Reid said the company had started early progressively signing contracts for long-lead ments with the likes of China’s Skyrock
site works at Yangibana, where mining and items and we have both Commonwealth and Baotou (2,500 tpa fixed for five years) and
beneficiation is set to take place, with the aim WA environmental permits in place.” German-based Schaeffler (50,000t over 10
of having completed full construction by late Yangibana, in WA’s Gascoyne region, years) and Thyssenkrupp (70,000t over 10
2023/early 2024. hosts a recently upgraded reserve of 16.7mt years).
“We need to build a 340-man camp,” he @ 0.95% TREO and is forecast to produce “Currently we have approximately 77%
said. “We have a very remote site. We need mixed rare earth concentrate of 15,000 tpa of our production contracted for the first five
to put in our airstrip and our site access grading 59% over an initial 15 years of mine years and about 65% in the second five
roads. We need to put a 300km-long IT radio life. years,” Reid said.
network in place as well, and the water reticu- The NdPr content of that mixed rare earth
lation from our borefield to our process plant. concentrate package will be 3,400 tpa, which – Michael Washbourne
“We’ve been progressing with detailed equates to about 7-9% of the world’s market.

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