Lynas catches overseas buyer’s eye in critical minerals race

Lynas Rare Earths boss Amanda Lacaze says the miner has been approached by North American and Asian companies looking to buy its business as the race heats up to secure supplies of the critical minerals needed to power the globe’s energy transition.

Asked on Tuesday at the Diggers & Dealers mining forum in Kalgoorlie if the company had received any buyout approaches, Lacaze confirmed it had, but not in recent weeks.

Lynas Rare Earths chief executive Amanda Lacaze says a new Australian processing plant in Kalgoorlie is on track to produce mixed rare-earth carbonate from September.Credit: Simon Johanson

Interest in the company has come from North America and Asia, but Lynas is also on the hunt for potential acquisition opportunities and not just a target, the chief executive said.

“We are always open to think about partnering, or doing offtake agreements, or acquisitions, or whatever,” Lacaze said. “But we haven’t seen anything yet which makes more sense than continuing to invest in our own assets.”

Lynas processes critical minerals it mines in Australia at a downstream refinery in Kuantan, on Malaysia’s east coast. Its licence to import and process lanthanide concentrate – various elements collectively known as rare-earth metals – in Malaysia had been set to expire last month, but the company was granted a last-minute appeal to continue until January.

As a result, it is racing to complete a new $575 million Australian processing plant in Kalgoorlie for its downstream cracking and leaching operations.

Lacaze said the plant was on target to produce mixed rare-earth carbonate from September.

Lynas is about to start building a heavy-rare-earths processing facility in Seadrift, Texas, after receiving $US258 million ($394 million) from the US Defence Department to fund the full construction, plus a matching $US30 million for a light-rare-earths plant.

The company sources most of its high-grade rare-earth oxides from its Mount Weld mine, in Western Australia’s north-eastern goldfields.

Lacaze said Lynas’ heavy-rare-earth processing facility in the US would not replace its downstream processing in Malaysia. “Malaysia will remain an important part of our business ... certainly for some time,” she said.

Companies exploring for, or extracting, rare earths and materials such as lithium, which are needed to power the world’s rapid shift to electric vehicles and new energy systems, make up more than half of the mining firms present at this year’s Diggers & Dealers, a forum that in the past has been dominated by gold and nickel companies.

The need to speed up the world’s transition from polluting fossil fuels and to reduce climate change is increasing investor focus on mining exploration and companies with known reserves of valuable “future facing” minerals, making them potential takeover targets.

Lithium giant Albemarle in late March lobbed a $2.50 a share offer for Liontown, a bid that the target’s board turned down alongside two previous offers, but a few months later the US-based firm inked a $15.7 billion tie-up with another Australian lithium producer, Allkem.

Most critical minerals perceived to be vulnerable to supply disruptions or essential to defence applications are processed in China, giving the Asian manufacturing powerhouse a dominance that is causing alarm among Western governments seeking to shore up their own supplies.

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