Lynas Rare Earths has secured a 10‑year operating licence for its Kuantan rare earths processing plant in Pahang, Malaysia, locking in long-term capacity for cracking and separation of neodymium-praseodymium and other light rare earth oxides. The approval follows earlier regulatory pressure over low-level radioactive waste from lanthanide concentrate and conditions on waste management and residue storage imposed by Malaysia’s Atomic Energy Licensing Board. The extended licence, combined with a reported profit surge, reduces near-term risk to Lynas’ supply chain while its Kalgoorlie cracking and leaching plant in Western Australia ramps up.

Victoria’s Government has launched a program to expand domestic critical mineral processing, targeting antimony from the Costerfield mine near Heathcote and other Victorian deposits to reduce reliance on Chinese and Russian supply. The initiative focuses on downstream processing capacity rather than new extraction, aiming to convert locally mined antimony into higher-value products such as antimony trioxide and flame-retardant masterbatches. For miners and processors, this signals potential support for new concentrators, refining circuits and offtake arrangements tied to onshore value-adding.

Rock Tech Lithium and Siemens Canada have signed a non-binding MoU to deploy Siemens’ Digital Twin technology across design, construction and operation of Rock Tech’s planned lithium converter at Red Rock, Ontario, modelled on its fully permitted, shovel-ready Guben converter in Germany. The Red Rock plant is planned for up to 32,000 tonnes per year of lithium carbonate equivalent, enough to supply about 900,000 electric vehicles annually, and would be Ontario’s first lithium conversion facility. Using the Guben blueprint is intended to compress development timelines, cut technical risk and improve capital efficiency for Canada’s midstream critical minerals capacity.