Lynas CEO Amanda Lacaze talks up Trump but no new Texas timeline has been revealed

Amanda Lacaze believes a Donald Trump presidency bodes well for Lynas Rare Earths, but little light was shed on the future of the miner’s American dream. Mr Trump re-ascending to the US presidency is good for Lynas’ plans to build a rare earths processing plant in Texas, Ms Lacaze indicated. “You know the ‘make America great again’ philosophy is about reshoring manufacturing and bringing manufacturing jobs home, and increasing the independence of the US,” the Lynas chief said at the company’s annual general meeting held in Sydney on Wednesday. Lynas has funding of $US288 million ($442m) from the US Department of Defence to build the Seadrift facility in Texas, which has been touted to play a big role in breaking Chinese domination of the rare earths supply chain. Earthworks to build the processing plant were set to start this year and key approvals were meant to be lined up, with construction scheduled for completion in mid-2026. But this week The West Australian revealed that Lynas has not filed an application for a crucial wastewater management permit that can take “two or more years” to obtain. After getting US government backing in early 2021 Lynas bought the Seadrift site in July last year, at a time when the operating license for its Malaysian processing plant looked in doubt. However, the Malaysian license was renewed after the Seadrift purchase. The proposed US facility was barely mentioned in Ms Lacaze’s Wednesday presentation and no new construction timeline was revealed, prompting shareholders to ask what the future holds for the development. Lynas chair John Humphrey in response referenced the company’s September quarterly announcement, which broadly mentioned a wastewater management permitting issue without providing substantive detail. “We’ve made an announcement in the quarterly that we’re having some permitting issues on the site at Seadrift, and those issues will take time to resolve,” Mr Humphrey said. “We aren’t in control of the timing, and at this stage where we’re trying to negotiate the time.” Mr Humphrey said the US government was still financially backing the project and Ms Lacaze chimed in to reiterate this. “There is no step back from them (the US Department of Defence) in terms of the commitment to this project being complete, and they are working very productively and collaboratively with us to be able to find a way through,” she said. “We have made no bones about the fact that ‘look what we’ve been able to do in five years elsewhere’.” Closer to home, Ms Lacaze said Lynas’ new Kalgoorlie processing plant was managing fine in the short-term without BHP’s WA nickel operations, but conceded there could be problems longer-term. Those shuttered BHP nickel operations were a key source of sulphuric acid for the Kalgoorlie plant’s leaching process. “We have worked with BHP and we have worked independently to identify alternate supply sources. We have those in place and we have the logistics which will get the product to Kalgoorlie,” Ms Lacaze said. “(The additional operational cost) is not significant, particularly in this year, but that’s one of the reasons why we’re looking at the medium and long term solutions, because as we ramp up Kalgoorlie more then it has the potential to have more effect.”