PERTH, April 24, 2026, 06:14 (AWST)
Lynas Rare Earths Ltd reported March-quarter gross sales revenue of A$265 million ($190 million), up 115% from a year earlier and its strongest quarter since late 2022, as buyers chased rare earth supply outside China. The Australian miner said demand stayed firm as customers moved to secure alternative supply chains.
The timing matters. Washington and its allies are trying to reshape a market long dominated by China, and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said this week partners must be ready to pay a “national security premium” for critical minerals sourced outside China. Chinese customs data also showed U.S. purchases of Chinese rare-earth magnets fell to a nine-month low in March. Rare earths are used in permanent magnets found in electric vehicles, wind turbines, electronics and weapons systems. Reuters
Lynas said its average selling price across products was A$84.60 a kg in the March quarter. The price for NdPr — neodymium-praseodymium, the main magnet material used in EV motors — rose 25% from the prior quarter, while total rare earth oxide output reached 3,233 metric tons and NdPr production came in at 1,996 tons.
Part of the lift came from product mix. Last month Lynas produced its first samarium oxide in Malaysia ahead of schedule, adding a third separated heavy rare earth product alongside dysprosium and terbium. Chief Executive Amanda Lacaze called it “a significant milestone” that would expand supply for high-performance permanent magnets. ASX Announcements
The quarter also followed a pair of March supply deals. Japan Australia Rare Earths agreed to take 5,000 tonnes a year of NdPr at a guaranteed minimum, or floor, price of $110 per kg, while the Pentagon set out a framework to buy about $96 million of light and heavy rare earth oxides from Lynas over four years at the same floor price. Lacaze said the Japanese pact would give buyers “reliable supply,” and said the U.S. arrangement would support the defence industrial base. Reuters
Lynas is also trying to move deeper into metals and magnets, not just oxides. It signed a framework agreement with South Korea’s LS Eco Energy to send rare earth oxides to a planned metals plant in Vietnam and kept working with JS Link on a magnet plant in Malaysia. LS Eco Energy CEO Lee Sang-ho said customers were “trying to build supply chain outside of China.” Reuters
The scramble is widening. USA Rare Earth struck a $2.8 billion deal this week to buy Brazil’s Serra Verde, another sign that Western groups are racing to build non-Chinese supply. Reuters reported in March that only Lynas and MP Materials currently produce rare earths at scale outside China, though Lynas says it is the only commercial producer of both light and heavy rare earth oxides outside the country.
But there are frictions. Lynas said fuel and other raw-material costs are rising and are hard to forecast, while a Kalgoorlie process improvement cut ready-for-sale output during the transition. Malaysia renewed the group’s operating licence for 10 years in March, easing a long-running overhang, but the licence still requires Lynas to neutralise earlier radioactive residue and stop producing new radioactive waste after five years.
The company said work-in-progress dysprosium and terbium material would be processed in the June quarter. At the same time, the board has started a search for Lacaze’s successor ahead of her planned exit at the end of the current financial year.
