LYC; looking forward, page-42

Thank you for an excellent and sober summary once again stjohnc.
It’s not only the Japanese Government - AND its key corporations - that have vital interests in Lynas RE production. I’m told there is about 3/4 of a tonne of various REs in every F35 strike fighter, and several tonnes in each of the world’s best submarines, the USN Virginia Class.. naturally similar essentiality applies to all other strategic Defence assets worldwide. (I’m mystified that Trump, the Pentagon, NATO and Australia is prepared to rely almost totally on Communist China for these products at present!)

But the other key issue for me is that in international terms, there is NO ACTUAL RADIOACTIVITY in the beneficiated products from Mt Weld that are shipped to the LAMP, NOR in any of the LAMP PRODUCTS, OR ITS PRODUCTION RESIDUES. For historical reasons, Malaysia sets a notifiable radioactivity threshold ten times lower than EVERY OTHER COUNTRY! So while the Mt Weld products are treated no differently iron ore or wheat when shipped from Australia, as they arrive in Kuantan they’re regarded as slightly ‘radioactive’, as is the water leach production residue WLP.

Many years ago Malaysian ministers and their experts in the Atomic Energy Licensing Board AELB spent years analysing all LAMP operations before granting the initial operating licenses, and agreed there were no risks to workers or the Kuantan community. They did insist on 24/7/365 monitoring of all possible pollution products, including radioactivity, by Government employees, all paid for by Lynas and its shareholders, of course. (The current public accusations of water and heavy metal contamination around the LAMP are proven to be false by freely available independent reports - all totally ignored by former SMSL campaigner Minister Yeo, naturally. There are NO heavy metal elements in any marterial entering or leaving the LAMP chemical plant, by the way - all the water pollution and heavy metals emanate from the many other industries locally, especially the very large amount of Bauxite mining, processing and road transport al, around the Kuantan area. The Bauxite operations are actually far more injurious to residents than anything that is done at the LAMP.)

There are similar tiny levels of naturally occurring radiation material (NORM) in the soils throughout Malaysia, Australia and elsewhere (and FAR HIGHER RADIATION in the tin mining mullock heaps throughout Malaysia that’s widely used as landfill and road base around Penang and Kuala Lumpur,without any Government or community concern.) But the completely normal and obvious solutions to dealing with the LAMP residues by either diluting them with other material to make them useable as landfill or roadbase, or better still, saleable as badly needed fertiliser for oil plantations in poor tropical soils are currently wilfully overlooked, because Government Ministers apoarently wish to target Lynas alone - for reasons that appear suspicious to me.

Tthe overall result now is disastrous for Malaysia’s industrial reputation, and for its future international investment opportunities, imho. The solution to Lynas’s dilemma is obvious and proven - but apoarennly politically elusive.......