T To Move the whole plant would probably be prohibitive. 99% of the waste in question comes from Cracking and leaching. There is lots of waste from other stages but this is all from reagents purchased locally and has no radioactive material in it. All questionable materials are removed from the REO at C&L. This is the very first step in the process. It would be easy to take concentrate from Mt Weld, do C&L in AU then ship REO to Lamps for processing. save waste for mine reclamation. The C&L stage needs lots of energy and water both of which are in good supply in Malaysia. Not as true in AU and in short supply near MW. There are 4 independent Kilns for C&L at the lamps. These could be moved one at a time with little interruption to production. My guess is they would build one new Kiln in AU and when that is stable then move the rest one or two at a time. Lynas has far more info than I do about maintenance and reliability, I am sure they would do it the right way.
There is also a possibility they could add another different process to concentration which would result in sending a much higher REO content to Malaysia thus cutting waste in Malaysia substantially.
All are expensive and tie up cash so My guess is they will come up with a much simplier solution.
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