Science, technology and innovation minister Chang Lih Kang said the extension allowed the continuation of the Australian rare earths producer’s cracking and leaching activities in Malaysia.
However, Chang said this is contingent on Lynas ensuring the radioactive content in water leach purification (WLP) residue is below 1 becquerel (Bq) per gramme through a research and development programme supported by local experts.
Items below 1Bq/g are not considered radioactive waste by the Atomic Energy Licensing Board (AELB) and thus do not come under the purview of the Atomic Energy Licensing Act (ALB).
“The decision of AELB is based on preliminary laboratory findings indicating that thorium radioactive elements can be extracted from WLP residues, allowing them to be released from legal controls under the AEL Act,” he told a press conference here today.
Chang also said the proposal to extract thorium from radioactive waste came from Lynas itself not long after it filed a judicial review for two of its operating licence conditions in Malaysia in July.
The thorium extraction is currently at laboratory level (for Lynas) and will have to be scaled up for commercialisation, he said.
However, he said Lynas does not need a new site for carrying out such extraction activities and would only need to allocate a piece of land within its compound at Gebeng, Pahang.
Chang also said extracting thorium from the lanthanide and the WLP residues would effectively make the waste generated by Lynas no longer radioactive.
Asked whether this provided a “win-win” situation for Lynas and the government, he said it fulfilled the intention not to continuously accumulate radioactive waste and also to solve the existing waste problem.
On May 9, the minister affirmed his decision to uphold the rejection of Lynas’s appeal to have four licensing conditions, set by the AELB in March 2020, following a hearing on April 28.
Cracking and leaching operations at the Gebeng plant were supposed to cease after July 1, but Chang said Lynas was granted a six-month extension until Dec 31 to prevent any disruptions to the global rare earths supply chain.
Last Friday, Lynas announced that it planned to temporarily shut down all its operations in Malaysia, except its mixed rare earth carbonate processing plant, from mid-November.
Earlier, in April, Lynas had said it planned to either temporarily cease its Malaysian operations or significantly reduce production if licence conditions prohibiting the import and processing of lanthanide concentrate remained.
We are live on Telegram, subscribe here for breaking news and the latest announcements.