Extract from AUST Business today: LYNAS COY ON POTENTIAL DEALS...

Extract from AUST Business today:
LYNAS COY ON POTENTIAL DEALS AS BRAZILIAN THREAT LOOMS

Lynas managing director Amanda Lacaze says the group is looking at acquisition opportunities, with questions over how the $6.6bn rare earth producer will defend itself from threats from the promising Brazil rare earths market.
However, she would not elaborate on where the group’s focus was while speaking at the Diggers & Dealers conference in Kalgoorlie on buyout opportunities, saying the company was looking at several prospects.
She told reporters at the conference that more than a month ago Lynas had received approaches, when asked whether the company had received any inbound buyout offers, but would not comment on where these approaches had come from.
Yet in a confusing situation, a Lynas media spokesman after the press conference told DataRoom that Ms Lacaze had misunderstood the question and that there had not been takeover interest in Lynas.
She also did not elaborate on what geographies were a key interest for Lynas when it came to potential buyouts of its own.
There is speculation that Lynas is under pressure to consolidate to defend its market position at a time when Brazil threatens to be a major force in the rare earths market.
Her comments also come as the company is being closely watched for any potential cost overruns at its Kalgoorlie project, which the company has previously said was on budget, dismissing suggestions otherwise.
One potential target for the company, sources say, could be the $437m Australian-listed exploration company Meteoric Resources, which explores mineral tenements in Brazil and Western Australia.
Ms Lacaze has been in the top job for about nine years, with some calling into question whether her position at the helm of the $6.6bn rare earths producer is near its end.
The company, subject to a $1.5bn buyout proposal from Wesfarmers in 2019, has capitalised on strong rare earth prices over several years, despite a fall in prices due to China’s market influence.
It has the Mt Weld mine, south of Laverton in WA’s northeastern goldfields that continues to produce a range of ore types, with high grades of rare earth oxides (REO) in grades of 24-45 per cent. Medium grades are in the range of 16-24 per cent and the mine cut-off grade is 4 per cent, with exploration within and near the mine continuing.
The Lynas Kalgoorlie processing facility on the western entrance to the city was now in the commissioning stage, with the waste treatment site the only required completion.
The first delivery of concentrates is on site. When processed, the upgraded material will go to Lynas’s Malaysian plant, where a second production facility has been developed.
A new plant in the US, once operating, would also take the Kalgoorlie plant’s material from Mt Weld.
In June quarter, there was record production at Mt Weld, where a new government grant of $20m was supporting the construction of a new plant.