Australian rare earths miner Lynas Corp’s (ASX: LYC) shares jumped on Friday after it announced a deal with the US government to build a commercial light rare earths separation plant in Texas.
The facility, expected to produce about 5,000 tonnes of rare earths a year, would help Washington’s push to secure domestic supply of essential minerals used in magnets and motors that power phones, wind turbines, electric vehicles and military devices.
It would house processing facilities for both heavy rare and light rare earths, directly sourced from Lynas’ cracking and leaching plant under development in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia.
China currently accounts for 70% of global production of rare earths, controlling 90% of the $4-billion global market.
Lynas, the only major rare earths producer outside China, said both the company and the US Department of Defense could potentially contribute about $30 million each to the geopolitically generated venture.
For the rest of this article: https://www.mining.com/lynas-shares-jumps-on-deal-for-us-rare-earth-plant/