PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Rare earths miner Lynas on Monday announced that its operating licence in Malaysia to import and process lanthanide concentrate has been extended until the start of 2024.

The licence variation allows the Lynas Malaysia cracking and leaching plant to continue to operate until January 2024 and will remove the requirement for a shutdown at the Lynas Malaysia plant prior to that date.

The variation was made by the Minister of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI) in response to appeals filed by Lynas in February this year against a decision by the Atomic Energy Licensing Board’s failure to consider Lynas’ application for the removal of the conditions prohibiting the import and processing of lanthanide concentrate after July 2023, and an appeal seeking the review of the conditions included in the sixth operating licence, which will be effective for a period of three years from March 2023.

Lynas had applied to the MOSTI Minister for the removal of the conditions which limit operations at the Lynas Malaysia facility as they represent a significant variation from the conditions under which Lynas made the initial decision to invest in Malaysia. Further, the conditions do not follow the recommendations of the Malaysian government’s 2018 Executive Review Committee report on Lynas Malaysia’s operations, the Atomic Energy Licencing Board’s own audits of Lynas Malaysia’s operations or any of the 3 prior independent expert scientific reviews of Lynas Malaysia’s operations.

While allowing for the import and processing of lanthanide concentrate, the Minister has otherwise dismissed Lynas’ appeals.  

Lynas said on Monday that the company would seek review through the legal avenues available to the company to ensure that the company was treated fairly and equitably as a foreign direct investor and as a significant employer and contributor to the Malaysian economy.

The Lynas Malaysia plant is the world’s largest single rare earths processing facility and the only scale producer of separated rare earths outside China.