KUALA LUMPUR: Lynas Malaysia will be allowed to import lanthanide concentrate until its licence expires in March 2026, says Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Chang Lih Kang.
The Australian rare earth materials producer will also be allowed to carry out cracking and leeching activities under the condition that radioactive levels in the Water Leach Purification (WLP) residue that it produces is below 1 Bq/g, he said.
(Becquerel per gram is the unit of radioactivity in the International System of Units (SI) used to describe the rate at which radioactive material emits radiation in a given time period.)
Chang’s announcement yesterday comes as Lynas Rare Earths said on Oct 21 that it was temporarily shutting down operations in Malaysia, except for its mixed rare earth carbonate (MREC) processing plant.
Speaking to reporters yesterday, Chang said the Atomic Energy Licensing Board (AELB) decided to amend two out of four of the company’s licence conditions and allow it to import lanthanide concentrate and carry out cracking and leeching activities.
“(This is) until their licence ends in March 2026,” he said during a press conference at the Malaysian Nuclear Agency here.
However, Chang said Lynas Malaysia will have to build a Permanent Disposal Facility (PDF) to store WLP residue.
Concentrated thorium will then be extracted from WLP residue according to requirements under the Atomic Energy Licensing Act 1984 (Act 304).
“An advantage of this is that the thorium concentration will only make up 0.25% of the total waste produced and it can be sold to other countries that have a nuclear power plant,” he said.
Chang said Lynas will also have to invest in facilities to extract thorium from WLP residue that can be scaled up from proof-of-concept and pilot to commercialisation.
A total of 1% or around RM25mil of Lynas Malaysia’s gross revenue will also be channelled to fund research and development of thorium extraction technology by local experts.
“Lynas is given two years until December 2025 to scale up its facilities from lab scale to pilot to commercialisation and ensure no radioactive waste is produced from extraction, cracking and leeching activities,” he said.
Chang said AELB decided to amend Lynas Malaysia’s licence conditions after the company proposed its thorium extraction technology to the board.
With these changes, Chang said radioactive waste will not be produced after extraction, cracking and leeching are done on lanthanide concentrate.
“It is a win-win situation for all parties as the (thorium extraction technology) fulfills our intention to not allow continuous accumulation of radioactive waste and it solves the problem of millions of tonnes of existing waste,” Chang said.
Chang added that AELB will verify and perform due diligence on the new technology and believes Lynas Malaysia can successfully complete the scaling-up process by December 2025. Cracking and leaching operations at Lynas Malaysia were supposed to cease after July 1 but in May, Chang said a six-month extension was given after taking into consideration the global supply chain conditions for rare earth.
Lynas also said it had received leave from the Kuala Lumpur High Court to proceed with its applications for judicial review of the Malaysian operating licence conditions.
