Photo by: Bloomberg
PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Mineral sands miner Lynas would move its head office from Sydney, Australia, to Kuala Lampur, Malaysia, as part of its efforts to streamline operations and reduce overall costs.
Newly appointed CEO Amanda Lacaze said this week that the company would also be co-locating the Lynas management personnel and resources with production and sales facilities in Western Australia and Malaysia.
“The streamlining of office locations is the first in a series of initiatives aimed at simplifying our approach and focusing on the highest value drivers in our business,” Lacaze said.
Other initiatives to deliver cost savings included reducing the workforce numbers, mostly contractors, improving the asset use, the renegotiation of supplier contracts and the improvement of procurement practices.
In the meantime, Lynas would maintain its focus on ramping-up production from its Advanced Materials Plant (Lamp), in Malaysia.
Over the past quarter, further bottlenecks were encountered, which Lacaze said had affected production outcomes. These have been managed and each of the major stages of the Phase 1 plant had individually been operated at target capacity during the current quarter.
“We are now working on delivering the optimal balance of volume, finished product quality and rare earth oxide yield – the volume of rare earths recovered through our process from mining to finished product.”
She added that higher quality output would attract premium pricing.
“Increasing the proportion of production that meets individual customer specification maximises sales revenue and promotes customer loyalty. By addressing this and by seeking to minimise the amount of rare earth lost during processing of Mt Weld ore, we create better value for shareholders.”
Lynas was targeting a production rate of 11 000 t/y at Lamp.