PERTH (miningweekly.com) - Rare earths miner Lynas has produced its first product from its much-contested Lynas Advanced Materials Plant (Lamp) in Malaysia.
During January this year, Lynas successfully commissioned the cracking and leaching rare-earth extraction units at Lamp, and had since been working through early-stage production issues typical to the start-up of new plans.
“Our focus is on increasing throughput and optimising use of equipment. These issues have not materially impacted on the overall production ramp-up schedule,” the company said in a statement.
The Phase 1 nameplate production capacity of 11 000 t/y of rare-earth product remained on target for the second quarter of this year.
The Lamp was still facing one judicial review challenge against the grant of a temporary operating licence. The court challenge had originally been scheduled for February 5, but had been postponed to enable the Kuantan High Court to deal with some preliminary matters.