Australia's Lynas Rare Earth Corp said on Friday it plans to shut down all of its Malaysian operations in the December quarter except for its mixed rare earth carbonate processing plant.
The company also reported a 21.8 percent drop in first-quarter revenue, hurt by lower product prices and continued inventory building.
Lynas said key personnel from its cracking and leaching unit in Malaysia would be deployed to its rare earth processing facility in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, to assist with its start-up process during the shutdown, which began in mid-November.
It has already started a kiln heating cycle at Kalgoorlie, which will be followed by its first production, followed by increased production over the next few months.
The company will upgrade its downstream operations at Lynas in Malaysia to increase production of dipraseodymium dysprosium to approximately 10,500 tonnes per year.
This upgrade will be essential if the company's Malaysian operating licence is renewed to allow the continued import and processing of lanthanide concentrate. Malaysia's operating license has a condition that prohibits the miner from importing and processing rare earth raw materials from January 2024.
The world's largest rare earth producer outside China said its sales revenue for the three months ended Sept. 30 was A $128.1 million (US $81.04 million), compared with A $163.8 million a year earlier and a consensus estimate of A $159 million, according to Barrenjoey.
Lynas said plans for the Mt Weld expansion project in Western Australia remained on track, while raising the project's forecast cost at completion, including contingencies, to about A $570 million from a previous estimate of A $500 million.
