News: Lynas opens WA rare earths mine

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Lynas Corporation Limited (ASX:LYC) will officially today open its Mt Weld mine in Western Australia, and it has reportedly already allocated around 70 per cent of its 11,000 million tonnes from the projects first stage.



Executive chairman Nicholas Curtis has told The Australian that the rare earths producer is “getting very close to putting up a sold out sign”, with the remaining offtake attracting lots of interest from industrial companies.



Lynas will offer the first new source of rare earths supply outside of China and Mr Curtis says the structural deficit in the rare-earths market is likely to continue for five years, due to China’s recently reduced export limits.



The company has confirmed that it has already signed eight customer agreements in addition to a strategic alliance with Japan’s Sojitz Corporation to provide stable supply to Japanese customers.  



Containers of rare earths concentrate extracted at Mt Weld will be trucked to Fremantle for shipping to Lynas’ Malaysian refinery.



In the first half of its 2011 financial year, Lynas Corporation reported a net loss of $20.5 million