Lynas Rare Earths says it has started to produce geopolitically important heavy rare earth elements

Lynas Rare Earths hailed the inaugural production of a rare earth element family that holds considerable geopolitical weight after reconfiguring its processing plant in Malaysia.

The ASX-listed mining major on Friday said its Malaysian refinery started churning out a dysprosium oxide product and expects to add terbium to the output list next month.

Dysprosium and terbirum are two elements of the “heavy” rare earth element family.

Heavy rare earths have a higher atomic weight than their “light” counterparts and are less common. Lynas was previously only producing light rare earths.

China’s stranglehold on the rare earths market predominantly relates to its near total domination of the heavy market segment.

The Middle Kingdom in December banned the export of heavy rare earths extraction and separation technologies to further tighten its grip.

“The production of this on spec dysprosium is a significant step for supply chain resilience and provides customers with the option of sourcing product from an outside China supplier,” Lynas chief executive Amanda Lacaze said on Friday.

“Lynas is now the world’s only commercial producer of separated heavy rare earth products outside China.

“We are engaged with customers in Japan, the United States and Europe regarding heavy rare earths supply,’’ Ms Lacaze said.

Lynas previously said the plant reconfiguration to produce heavy rare earths would cost about $25 million.

The dysprosium production milestone comes days after The West Australian revealed the existence of a brewing legal fight revolving around Lynas’ Malaysian refinery.

At the onset of 2020, just weeks before COVID-19 brought the world to a halt, Lynas was ordered by Malaysian authorities to build a ‘permanent disposal facility’ for the radioactive and toxic remnants of its rare earths refining process.

A well-funded Malaysian activist is dragging Lynas and various Malaysian government departments to court over the planning approval granted for the permanent disposal facility.

The Malaysian Court of Appeal has pencilled in a October 17 date to hear arguments from anti-Lynas campaigner Tan Bun Teet.

Mr Teet lost an appeal action filed to a regional court in May 2023, but Lynas and the other defendants failed to strike out an escalation of that appeal to the national judiciary.

The existence of a radioactive Water Leach Purification residue is of particular concern to Lynas’ critics, like Mr Teet.

These detractors believe the Ms Lacaze-led miner underplays how bad the residue is and uses Malaysia as a dumping ground for dangerous waste because running such an operation in Australia would be politically unpalatable.

The ore fed into Lynas’ Malaysian processing plant comes from the company’s Mt Weld mining operation near Laverton.

The West in February revealed that a entity owned by a Malaysian prince and dead politician’s daughter hold the contract to build and maintain the permanent disposal facility.

Shares in Lynas were up 2.6 per cent to $7.66 each by 10.30am.