Reuters
Australia’s Lynas plans temporary shutdown of Malaysia ops, shares fall
(Reuters) -Australia’s Lynas Rare Earths said on Friday it planned to shut all operations in Malaysia on a temporary basis, except a mixed rare earth carbonate processing plant in the December quarter, with minimal volumes of the raw material processed during the interim shutdown. Lynas’ Malaysian operations have been a sore point for the company, with the country’s government raising concerns about the radiation levels from cracking and leaching for the last couple of years and Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim warning of a policy to ban exports of rare earth raw materials. It will implement an upgrade to its downstream operations at Lynas Malaysia to increase production of neodymium-praseodymium (NdPr) to about 10,500 metric tons per annum.