Lynas Rare Earths looks to US Government to pick up tab for stalled Texas plant as tariffs stoke supply fears

Lynas Rare Earths’ chief executive says geopolitical tumult engulfing the highly sough-after minerals is “up in the air like a pack of cards”, as the miner asks the US Government for more funding for a stalled project in Texas. Amanda Lacaze, who leads one of the only rare earths miners and refiners outside of Asia, said Lynas was strategically managing output at its Kalgoorlie and Malaysian operations in a market where “the US and Chinese government actions are both presenting challenges to our business.” “At Lynas, we continue to focus on building our competitive advantage while everything around us gets thrown up in the air like a pack of cards,” Ms Lacaze said. With supply already tightly-controlled by China, dynamics in the rare earths market were made even more opaque and unpredictable amid heightened geopolitical tensions arising from US President Donald Trump’s trade war. “Lynas expects market volatility to continue through the June 2025 quarter as a result of the new global tariff environment and China export controls,” the miner said in a quarterly update released on Monday. China earlier this month halted exports of the materials, which are critical inputs in magnets used in phones, MRI machines, missiles and wind turbine motors. Overstocking of supplies in China has already kept rare earths prices in a glut for several years and made it difficult for western producers to enter the market. Leaning into the geopolitical rift and US interest in shorting up supplies, Lynas has for some time proposed building a heavy rare earths facility named Seadrift in Texas. But water permitting issues have driven up costs of the operation, and as a result of the various delays has no clear development timeline. Ms Lacaze said on Monday the business was “actively involved” in talks with US defence industry players about minimising its exposure to the rare earths shortage, and said she thought Lynas was “an important and valuable player, as far as the US government is concerned”. “We have a new process, which we propose to implement, which will see us deal with (water permitting) but it does come at a greater cost, and the US government, at present, has quite a lot of issues on their plate, and not all decision-making positions have been filled.” Lynas told the market it was still working through the planning phase of the project but was “in discussion with the US Government regarding the additional CAPEX required to implement this alternative pathway”. The miner has already secured a $US288 million ($442m) commitment to develop Seadrift from the US Department of Defence. Lynas’ flagship operation is the Mt Weld mine in Kalgoorlie, where it also has recently opened a cracking and leaching operation to turn mined rare earth ores into a carbonate. The company also has a processing facility in Malaysia where it produces separated rare earth materials.