I would now like to hand the conference over to Lynas Rare Earths. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and welcome to the Lynas Rare Earths investor briefing for the half year ending 31 December 2025. Today's briefing will be presented by Amanda Lacaze, CEO and Managing Director. Joining Amanda today are Gaudenz Sturzenegger, CFO; Daniel Havas, VP, Strategy and Investor Relations; and Sarah Leonard, General Counsel and Company Secretary. I'll now hand over to Amanda Lacaze. Please go ahead, Amanda.
Thanks, Jen. Good morning, everybody. Thank you all for joining today. I always think that it's a bit funny. You can see me, but I can't see you, but I hope that you're all well, and, you know, I'm incredibly pleased to be able to do this presentation. The first half of FY 2026 has been one of those sort of half years where we were very busy. It's really only in retrospect that the scale of what we were able to achieve has been properly illustrated. Look, I think it will be helpful to really step through the presentation that we launched today. We've got the obligatory disclaimers, and we have the important recognition of country.
you know, as an operator in Australia in the mining sector, acknowledging and respecting the traditional owners of the lands on which we live, work, and meet across Australia is important, and in particular, acknowledging and valuing our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees, partners, and communities. in the year to date, as I said, in the first six months of this year, we were busy, but, you know, as we look back on it in the rear vision mirror, gosh, we were really busy! Many achievements. you know, for a long time we've been talking to you about the Lynas 2025 capital projects. during this, you know, first six months of this financial year, a lot of milestones have been achieved with respect to those.
The Mount Weld expansion project has been largely commissioned, with the new flotation circuit operating at 70% of nameplate. I know that oftentimes, you know, it's sort of, people will look at Mount Weld, and they'll just think, "Oh, well, you know, we know the Mount Weld resource. We know the beneficiation circuit. All of this is pretty easy." I just would like to remind everyone, this is a big, complex project, as big as many other mining firms in Australia who don't do any processing past that initial beneficiation. We've had to commission three new mills. We've got new processes. We've got significant investment. I'll talk a little bit more about with water recycling.
All of these things, you know, it has been a complex commissioning and process and ramp-up process, and I'm really pleased with the progress that the team has made. Also of really important note is our 65 MW hybrid renewable power station is operational, and you can see some of the photos further on of the new wind turbines. The ramp-up at Kalgoorlie continues. We've undertaken a number of process modifications there to improve its performance. I think, as everybody knows, it has not been without its challenges, both internally and most particularly externally. It's very difficult to run a big, complex plant like Kalgoorlie, without reliable power.
In Malaysia, where I think that we often don't put quite as much focus as we're talking about these things, there's been significant changes implemented as part of Lynas 2025. The uplift in production capacity, you know, the processing of mixed rare earth carbonate, of course, the... You know, we had our first full six months of HR or of separation of dysprosium and terbium. Having done all of those things, and, you know, we've drawn the line under the Lynas 2025 capital program, it's really about how are we setting up the business for the next growth phase. You know, we started with the capital raise. We've announced the larger HRE separation facility that will go into Malaysia.
We've announced some elements of, you know, our contribution to continuing industry development, including in metal and magnets, but also in terms of resource development. As we look at all of this, I am minded to remind everybody that this is complicated, and I think I have mentioned it previously, but I would, you know, recommend to any, you know, sort of observer of this market, a particular study done by a engineer. Jen can provide information on this, but, you know, a consulting engineer on ramp-up curves for critical minerals. The fact that, you know, if you use McNulty, which is a one to five in rare earths outside China, you know...
you've never had anyone who's, or in critical minerals projects generally, you've only had one or two projects, and this includes things like vanadium and nickel, and as well as rare earths and a variety of other materials, that has ever come close to a McNulty 1 or 2, which is the fastest, most trouble-free ramp up. In other sectors, you know, Lynas has performed best. You know, and we were at a McNulty 4 ramp up in Malaysia, and then we jumped up to a McNulty 2 in around about 2016.
It is easy because we are an established player for people to think, "Oh, well, we've just brought on a new facility here and brought on a new facility there, and, you know, everything's fine." I would just remind everybody of the complexity and the value that derives from the fact that we are an established and experienced operator, and indeed have been able to bring our new assets online. Not trouble-free, that would not be fair to my operations team to say that, but certainly in very good order, and we continue that ramp up as we speak. We continue to put safety at the heart of everything that we do. I was talking to our board about this, and as we were thinking about, you know, how do we present some of this safety information?
I made the point that you know, it's a little bit disappointing in some ways that we hardly ever spend any time on the safety slide externally. We spend a huge amount of time, however, on safety, on personal and process safety inside the business. You know, I would also take this opportunity to remind everyone that, you know, Australian mining leads the world in terms of both our approach and our performance in with respect to safety and other sustainability practices. We're incredibly proud that the major maintenance that we undertook in Malaysia, late in the second quarter, which involved over 30 subcontracting companies and 100,000 work hours, was executed to schedule and without injury. We're incredibly proud that Mount Weld and Kalgoorlie employees achieved 12 months without any recordable injuries in December 2025.
As our projects now move from commissioning to operations, we are very, you know, focused on our Yes! We CARE HSE strategy. Yes, we really do care that everybody goes home safely and well every day. If we look at our financials, well, this is, you know, very pleasing for me as I make my last half year report to be able to report such an excellent result. I'm also a bit sad that the next CEO will get all of the second half glory, as we've foreshadowed in our announcement, you know, we expect that the market settings will continue to be positive.
I think everyone who's been following Lynas for some time would appreciate we are the only company that can take full advantage of the positive market settings, because we are the company that is operating and producing today, not just lights, but also heavies. Excellent performance. Sales revenue, net profit after tax, EBITDA, all up, and of course, we have the big jump in cash and short-term deposits as a result of the capital raise, which is setting us up for Towards 2030. When we look at it operationally, and this is one of my favorite photos, and I think some folk have been in Malaysia in the last six months and would have seen this new part of product finishing, and it is, you know, just beautiful.
It's part of our uplifting capacity that we have available to us now in Malaysia. NDPR production was absolutely on track for a record six months until we hit the problems with power in Kalgoorlie, we're just a little bit off. As you can see from this, we're starting to roll off in terms of sort of final payments related to the capital program with Lynas 2025. Looking at that sort of with a bit of history, you know, we've just put in the half years since FY20. You can see that we are, you know, sort of consistently increasing, like, on a rolling 12-month basis. Rightly so, with all of the investment that we've made, we continue to set new production records.
As I say to our operations team, every month should be a record, as we continue our ramp up of the new facilities. Of course, you can also see the benefits that come from the increased benchmark selling price. The benchmark is moving higher, but our internal measure is how much we can beat that benchmark by as a result of our efforts and our negotiations with various customers. The market generally is very constructive right now. You know, as we've indicated, the price in December 2025 was sitting, for NdPr was sitting at $74 a kilo, compared to $49 in December 2024. That price has continued to firm, and yesterday we reached over the sort of magic $110 a kilo mark.
This really reflects a number of things. It does reflect the government actions in which is really starting to reshape the market. We are seeing governments, you know, Australia, Japan, EU, and of course, the US, taking action to create a functional market, right? We have never asked for subsidies, but there is no question there has been market failure for many years in the rare earths industry. Enacting policies which ensures that the market is functioning properly, we think is really important. As those policies are implemented and the market responds, then, you know, the potential cost to government just goes down.
You know, I mean, like, at present, as the price sits above the $110 NDPR floor price, I'm sure the U.S. government is feeling very relaxed. We continue to be engaged closely with relevant governments, and I'm sure many people will have read various articles on, you know, the likelihood of governments other than the U.S. government also putting in place policy measures to facilitate a proper functioning market. For us, huge opportunities. We make lots of NDPR, and we make now Dy and Tb. These are the products in greatest demand, in terms of total volume, and we will shortly be producing some other materials, particularly samarium, which we expect to come through before the end of this financial year.
I was hoping, yeah, then it will follow up with gadolinium and yttrium, and then other elements as we bring our new production facility in Malaysia online. Japanese magnet makers are winning new business. Ex-China magnet buyers are seeking direct supply to mitigate supply chain risks. As recently as yesterday, we had Chinese indicating further controls on materials to be exported to Japan. We have a very long-standing and productive relationship with our Japanese customers, and this certainly provides an opportunity for Lynas. We are seeing significant demand for our bundled lights and heavies. You know, sort of being able to sell these together in the ratio that customers require them, gives us a significant competitive advantage in the market. This says we can capture value.
We are capturing value from the current market upside. Just then just, you know, everyone can step through. I love this picture of Mount Weld. We've gone from this tiny, baby, little, you know, sort of concentrator, which is sitting, sort of in the sort of top right-hand corner there, below the processed water pond. At on your top left, I think it's quite helpful for people to see. Those are our tailings dams, but as you can see, they're like a beautifully, you know, sort of plowed field. Not ready to be sown with wheat, but certainly ready to be re-mined and put back through our processing facility.
Some of the elements of the new beneficiation plant means that we will be able to liberate some of the materials which we did not recover in the first instance. In those tailings dams, you know, facilities, we've actually been able, you know, to track the rare earths concentration at somewhere around about 70% to 7.5%, which makes it in and of itself a highly valuable mineral resource. Kalgoorlie continues to ramp up. Oh, sorry, No, Jen, you can go back. You know, you can see three of our four wind turbines there. This is just terrific. We are so pleased with the new power station. It is not cheap.
You know, I do get frustrated when people talk about how, you know, sort of the unit cost of a kilowatt hour of renewable power is cheaper than any other option. That's true, but only after you've covered the capital cost of the four wind turbines and 2,500 solar panels, and the gas turbines, which need to be there to provide baseload power, and the batteries as well. Having said that, it is true that on a variable cost basis, we now have electricity, which is significantly less costly than our previous diesel power station. More importantly, you know, we are really, really pleased that we've been producing, you know, in December, 92% of our power has come from renewable electricity.
The wind at night has been a better source of power than we were expecting. The power station is performing better than our initial target of 70% renewable content. Really very excited about that. The second really significant initiative as part of the Mount Weld expansion was commissioning of some of the new water treatment facilities, with our objective to achieve the 90% of our tailings water to be recycled. We've been able to demonstrate that. We're not yet reliably and, you know, sort of delivering at that level, but we are confident that we will get there. Then Kalgoorlie. Kalgoorlie, I, you know, I think I've said previously, we need to recognize there are two parts, cracking and leaching.
We have many skills when it comes to, you know, sort of cracking rare earths ores in our company. The cracking and leaching part of Kalgoorlie is actually running pretty well, notwithstanding the carbonation circuit. As with all new processes, we've found as we've ramped it up that, you know, bottlenecks move around, and that we need to enhance or improve certain processes. We are doing that in a very managed and measured way, just like we did when we were ramping up the LAMP 10 years ago.
Kalgoorlie continues to improve, but not yet quite yet where we would like it to be on a long-term basis. Lynas Malaysia is, once again, you know, not giving me any sleepless nights at all. You know, the Malaysian plant is running extraordinarily well. Particularly, we're seeing the benefits of the major maintenance on the cracking plant in the second quarter. It's running better than it has ever run in its life. The new separation circuits are stable and producing, and really it's just a case of can we keep feedstock at the sorts of rates that we want them to?
I think as we said, we produced Dy and Tb last year, and we've announced the new expansion, heavy rare earth expansion plant, and we expect samarium production soon-ish. All looking very good in Malaysia as well. In the U.S., you know, well, boy, has the U.S. government really, you know, sort of discovered rare earths. We have continuing discussions with the U.S. government, particularly with respect to an offtake agreement, which is acceptable to us. Having said that, our engagement with particularly U.S. defense industries is really strong and we are selling material into U.S. defense industries at very pleasing prices. We've also taken the opportunity to do a little brand promotion.
I thought everyone would like to see our billboards as they were in various locations in Washington. Just, Jen, moving on to the next one. I've really already talked about the hybrid power station. Okay, now we'll move on to communities, and I think everybody who has even spent a few minutes with me over the years knows my view, which is that we cannot prosper if the communities in which we operate do not prosper as well. In each and every one of our locations, we are incredibly connected to community. We think that it is a really important part of our success and also our culture. I look at the faces whenever we have...
these photos, I look at the people that, you know, our people who are engaged in our community events, and I'm just really proud of them and really proud of the contribution that we make to improving the lives of the people who both work for us, but also, you know, their families and their community. With that, I am very happy to... Oh, yeah, we got the stuff about people. I'm really happy to take questions.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you are on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Rahul Anand with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Oh, hi, good morning, Amanda and team. Thanks for the call, and the update. I just wanted to ask a question on sort of how you're going with securing that ionic clay deposit or supply from Malaysia for the HRE plant. I guess, you know, how much can you produce from the plant currently in terms of yttrium, dysprosium, and terbium if you, if you're only using the Mount Weld feed? Thanks.
We can't produce anything from the plant yet because it's not actually constructed. We do just have our small little circuit that, you know, which is just doing the Dy and Tb right now. We will have some samarium come out, but that's actually not from the ultimate facility. We're doing that via a bit of flow sheet development within our normal operations. We are working closely with a number of firms in Malaysia on working through the ionic clay development, with the objective that we will have that as feedstock at the same time as we're bringing that new plant online, which we expect to be towards the end of calendar year 2027.
Yes, my question was related to the new plant, Amanda. I guess just as a follow-up, if there is at all, a restriction from China in terms of, I guess, IAC leaching reagents or SX chemicals, is there a contingency plan, or can you source them elsewhere as well once that plant ramps up?
We've already done that. We've already put in place contingency plans for all our reagents and all equipment which is required in Malaysia. We've been working on that since, well, actually, since before the initial issues in April last year, but certainly since that time. Where, you know, when we started last April, there was a couple of critical path items. We have identified alternate sources for those items, and, you know, we are confident about our ability to continue to operate. You know, the point that you're making about your sort of availability of reagents, equipment, and expertise out of China is an important one and is another reason why Lynas is in such a strong position to take advantage of, you know, current market dynamics compared to other firms.
Indeed, it is. Okay. That's my two. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from Neal Dingmann with William Blair. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Good day. Good evening from myself. Amanda, quick question. Could you talk a little bit about offtake agreements, maybe, you know, even including, I know with Noveon, you have the MoU? I'm just wondering, it seems like, again, now that you are cranking up production, I would assume everybody's sort of knocking at your door.
Of course, sometimes we knock at their doors. Certainly, our objective is to ensure that we have, ultimately, that we have 100% of our offtake contracted to the highest value customers in the market. Our ability to be able to sell bundles of NDPR and Dy and/or Tb certainly gives us the opportunity to be able to capture, as I said, the highest value customers. You know, we're confident that as we ramp up, you know, over the next three years as some of the downstream capability, you know, outside China, downstream capability comes online, that we will be able to place 100% of our material outside China. Having said that, you know.
Okay.
China is the largest, re- rarest market in the world, and, you know, we're happy to participate in the Chinese market as well.
Yeah, very good.
Yeah.
Just remind me on the heavies, what's your capacity on the heavies? Can you remind me again?
Well, at present, we haven't provided explicit capacity on Dy and Tb because it's a bit of an opportunity, you know, sort of circuit that we've put in place. On the, you know, we've, we have provided that, and actually it'd probably be best if I point to Daniel to give that sort of data. At present, you know, if you take our production stats that we've provided as part of the quarterly report for the first six months, that's probably a reasonable sort of an indication. Daniel, did you want to add anything to that?
Well, the current circuit has the capacity of 1,500 tons throughput. As Amanda points out, we've not provided guidance on the breakdown of the Dy and Tb coming out of that. The new facility will allow us to have 5,000 tons of throughput, and the figures were outlined in the release when we announced the heavy circuit, sorry, the heaviest facility that we're putting in to Malaysia.
Very good. Thank you all.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from Austin Yun with Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Morning, Amanda and team. Just first question is on the cost side. Looking to understand what's driving the the rise in the general and the main costs in this period. Also, you know, understand how should I think about the depreciation charges given the run rate is ramping up at Kalgoorlie? Thank you.
Sorry, what was, Austin, what was the second part of that question? I just missed it.
sorry. The second part is on the depreciation charges.
Depreciation.
On Kalgoorlie.
Okay.
Yeah.
I-
The main points, yeah.
Okay, I'm just gonna ask Gaudenz to deal with both part A and part B. Gaudenz?
Yeah. Hello, everybody. Hello, Austin. Thank you for the question. I think the first one I understood was a G&A question. The other one was a depreciation question. On the G&A, I think if you go a little bit to Note 10, which and Note 2 in this case, I think a big portion of the increase is related to not absorbed depreciation and employment cost charges which relate to KALG. We are not yet running at the run rate we are planning. That has impacted about AUD 20 million-AUD 25 million on this.
On a depreciation level, I think here important to go back to our main projects we have or we had. I think it's AUD 800+ million on KALG, AUD 550 million for the Mount Weld expansion, and most of this has been capitalized before. You will see now the impact on the depreciation side. There is a smaller portion, AUD 100 million-AUD 200 million, which is still to be capitalized in Mount Weld expansion, which should happen in this quarter. I think it's a pretty solid base you have seen there. There's probably a little bit more due to the second phase of the Mount Weld.
Fundamentally, it's just the eight, the AUD 1.3, AUD 1.35 billion which are coming into operation and where we had the capitalization event. I hope that helps.
Yeah, sure. The depreciation charges will be even higher in the second half, potentially, given the front part?
Yeah, exactly.
Understood. Okay, thank you. Just the second question is on Kalgoorlie. Amanda, you mentioned that, you're still kind of, in the ramp path and, the bottleneck is sort of shifting. I'm just keen to understand your operating model plan for this plant in the next 12 months. Are we still expecting a batch operation model, or would you aim to switch to continuous towards the end of this calendar year? Thank you.
At present, you know, Kalgoorlie is extra capacity to the base load in Malaysia, and so we manage production to that. You know, that's not hard to work that out. You know, we added 50% capacity to downstream, so we've got base load comes out of cracking in Malaysia, plus, you know, half of that again coming out of Kalgoorlie. We'll just manage it, whether it's, you know, sort of decisions on batching or continuous operation for longer batches. I guess that they're just operational decisions that we will make on what's the best operating and financial outcome.
Thank you, Amanda. I'll pass down.
Thanks, Austin.
Your next question comes from Chen Jiang with Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Amanda. Thank you for all the color on the rare earths market and comments about yourselves in the presentation. First question, just trying to understand your comments about Lynas continue to optimize your sales model, direct contracting, and also you have ongoing negotiation offtake agreement with U.S. government. What's going to change going forward, especially for your 7.5 southern Tampuran and NDPR priority sales to Japan? Because you are ramping up, there will be incremental sales ex-Japan. I guess, given how should we think about your pricing mechanism for NDPR? Because as you mentioned in the call, China NDPR price is $19 or 17% above the price floor.
I guess you are getting that US $120 per kilogram higher than price floor, or you can beat that benchmark for NDPR. Thank you, Amanda.
You've answered all your own questions, Jen. Yes, our job. The sales job and the sales measure that our head of sales provides to me on a monthly basis is what % above the equivalent benchmark rate are we achieving in terms of price? You know, we do achieve a premium versus the benchmark. It is different customer by customer for customer-specific reasons, and we don't provide, you know, sort of detail on all of our customer contracts, which wouldn't surprise you. I mean, they're commercial in confidence and really such an important driver in our business. We do still have... However, we have some contracts which, you know, have floors and ceilings, and the ceilings sometimes can be, you know, lower than the market price.
You know, we've made a decision that made sense when we put those contracts in place. We have other contracts which are just, you know, pegged to the market price. As the price goes up, you know, we make more money. We have increasingly longer-term contracts. Our discussion with, you know, all of particularly magnet buyers, is that we're not interested in short-term contracts. We're interested in long-term contracts which properly reflect the value of the materials that we produce. We've always said this, that we have a variety of different pricing mechanisms, and the task of our sales team is to optimize that to give us the best possible return.
You know, really a key measure on that is how much value are they adding, you know, which is the size of the premium versus the benchmark. Life's pretty good right now, as you can see.
Yeah. Yeah. I guess for your priority sale to Japan versus ex-Japan, you would get a better price, ex-Japan. Is my understanding correct?
We seek to get the best price in every instance, which is the right price for our customers and the right price for us. We have a very long-standing relationship with our Japanese customers. We have commitments which are mutual commitments on, you know, as far as those contracts are concerned. You know, I think that I understand why you are asking this, and you're trying to deconstruct our revenue line. I'm not going to even give you breadcrumbs to be able to do that, because the way that we deal with our customers is an important part of adding value in our business, and I don't want to be deconstructing the way that we, you know, deliver the final outcome. You know, the issue is.
I understand.
Are we continuing to drive extra growth from our, you know, from our business, and are we driving that growth from a combination of volume and price? I think that our results tell you that we are doing that.
Sure, understand. Amanda, just a second question, on your balance sheet. I guess you have over AUD 1 billion cash sitting there from the equity you raised last year. Now, thinking of the incoming operating cash flow over the next two months, given NDPR price is so high and you continue to ramp up production, so you will have a lot of cash printing over the next two months. Your FY 2026 CapEx kind of guided last year, AUD 160 million. How should I think about your CapEx profile? I guess you won't keep piling the cash. How should I think about your CapEx profile and your organic growth over the next, I guess, near term or medium term? Thank you, Amanda.
Thanks, Chen. I think the first thing is that we did if we separate these two things, and actually we do separate these two buckets of money, as even on our, you know, we still do a weekly forecast. We separate these two buckets of money. We manage to the, you know, ex capital raise bucket, you know? Really, what are we doing in terms of generating cash from operations and improving our position there? That is really because, you know, it remains my, you know, heart's desire that we are able to return some of that capital to our shareholders.
The second piece, which we manage as a separate, you know, a bucket of money, is the money that we raised for the Towards 2030 growth initiatives. We will spend that money on those initiatives. Far, we have announced AUD 180 million, which is for the new HRE plan in Malaysia. As well as that, we've, you know, we are progressing rapidly on detailed documentation around things like the JS Link magnet factory in Malaysia. We will be making further investments in terms of resource development, once again, particularly in Malaysia.
That's the way that we are thinking about this, with the objective that as we continue to generate more cash out of the business, that we manage that accordingly, and we have the ability to make a decision on how and at what time and in what form might that be returned to shareholders. Recognizing that we are still a growth business, the capital that we raised in August actually underpins our growth capability and will continue to do so.
Great. Thank you so much, Amanda, for that insight. Thank you. I'll pass it on.
Thanks, Chen.
Your next question comes from Jonathan Sharp with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Amanda and team. Congratulations on the good result. Nice to see those NDPR prices coming up. Our first question, just on the Towards 2030 five-year growth strategy, which, you know, one of the pillars is, increasing capacity. My question is, will this include expanding NDPR capacity at some point beyond 12,000 tonnes per annum? Now, I understand that you're currently embedding the expansion that you've just done and that but yeah, will it include expanding beyond the 12,000 tonnes per annum? If I'm correct, my understanding is that there's a pathway to an additional 2.4 kilotonnes per annum at the concentrator, which was previously disclosed.
You have the capacity of cracking and leaching once KALG's ramped up, I would imagine the ability to expand solvent extraction is there with not too much capital. Really, my question is, why not expand further beyond 12,000, even if that's after 2030? Is it more to do with the market being there to sell into?
Thanks for the question, Jonathan, and welcome. I see that you're now, you know, head honcho rare earths at JP's. Yes, we will consider expansions beyond the current. Well, we've said in the Towards 2030, like today, we got 10.5. We've said, you know, the stepping up to 12 is sort of a bit of a no-brainer. There are, however, you know, some more substantial investments required to take it beyond that, but we know what they are. Some are at Mount Weld, and some will actually be in Malaysia. You're right about our ability to be able to increase throughput and solvent extraction at, you know, very cost effectively.
Bear in mind, we just put on about 50% capacity increase in solvent extraction without a really serious price tag attached to it. The next step is going to have a few more costs associated with it, and some of those are gonna be related to utilities and other management capabilities in Malaysia. The team is working on that. We expect over the five-year period, yes, we will have placed 100% of what we produce outside China, and we will be looking for more production. Therefore, we will be looking to drive production higher. We don't have the precise plan on how all the bits of the jigsaw fit together to do that quite yet.
Okay, thank you for that. Maybe just to dig in a little bit more on that, would it be, you know, you know, right to do 14,000 tonnes per annum after 2030? Or is there a number there to give it?
Well, I think as you've noted, Jonathan, we have identified a 2,400 tonne uplift that would come out of Mount Weld. We've previously identified that that's available and maybe towards, you know, I would think that, you know, our ability to place all of our NdPr outside China is dependent upon the speed with which the downstream industry develops. you know, I think there's something like seven different magnet projects in the U.S. at present. you know, some of them will never see the light of day, others will come to market. We've got the projects that we're partnering with, particularly, in, you know, the Korean metal and magnet-making projects. We are confident that they will come online.
We will increase our NdPr production as downstream processing increases. Hopefully, those projects which do successfully come to market will start producing sometime in late 2027, early 2028. We'll have a watching brief on those to make sure that we're matching our production to, you know, that capacity.
Okay, great. Just second question. Congratulations on the.
Wait-
Very good earnings.
Yeah, two questions.
at Lynas.
I'm sorry. Go on, Jonathan.
Sorry.
Go on. I shouldn't have talked about it.
Um.
Yeah. Yeah, go on.
I know you're still there, but as you do look to appoint the next CEO, what are you looking at in terms of capabilities? Is it operational execution, marketing, maybe government relations? Should we expect any changes in the direction under the new CEO?
Look, you'll have to ask the board that. Despite the fact that, you know, I think that I'm by far the most competent person to select the next CEO, you know, the non-executive directors on our board think they have a say, too. I think that my job is to make sure that we have a business which is strong, which is resilient, and which is able to continue to demonstrate the same sort of success that we've been able to demonstrate over my tenure. I would expect that given the quality of our track record, that the board would not be seeking to make an appointment which would take the business in a fundamentally different direction.
Thank you.
I'm sorry, everybody. I've just got a message that says that there are seven more questions in the queue, and it's 10:54. Please, can we just have one question each, so that we can try to give everybody a chance to ask a question?
Your next question comes from.
Next question.
Daniel Morgan with Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
Hi, Amanda. just on the market, it's clearly improved. Spot prices are rallying, customer inquiry is increasing. I'd basically just like to circle back to how you plan to run the volume side of the business going forward. Can you lift volumes materially from here? When do you think you can run the system at 10.5, or is rectification and power issues at Kalgoorlie meaning that in the short term you're going to be capped at 8,000-9,000 tonnes per annum? Thank you.
Thanks, Daniel. Good question. In the very short term, the eight to nine is probably right. In the short term, but not quite so very short term, we continue to be focused on, you know, the 10.5. 10.5 is roughly 30 tonnes a day. We know how we get that 30 tonnes a day, and we have many days where we are achieving the 30 tonnes a day. We're just not achieving it every day, yet. Yes, that is primarily about Kalgoorlie, and about the amount of feed that we're able to deliver into LAMP ex-Kalgoorlie.
Okay.
Your next question comes from Scott Ryall with Rimor Equity Research. Please go ahead.
Hi, thank you. Amanda, on slides five and six, No, sorry, five, you talked to how well the business was set up as an incumbent and with lots of capability and opportunities to expand into other areas. I guess what you didn't say was that's your legacy, so congratulations. I'm wondering, just on a three- to five-year basis, given the excitement around rare earths in the last couple of years, that has picked up big time, how do you keep your staff and, or protect your staff and protect your intellectual property, please, just in the context of your incumbency advantages?
Really, I think that's a, a really intelligent question because many times people forget the importance of people in the business. You know, we talk about IP, and there is no doubt that some of it is, you know, scientific IP, which can be properly documented, et cetera. There's huge value that comes from, you know, just every operator in the company actually knowing what their job is, and that's a form of IP as well. We're very focused on ensuring that we are a, an employer of choice, and I don't expect that to change when we transition to a new CEO, because Lynas is so much more than a single person. Lynas, it's... I know that, you know, I'm the figurehead, but Lynas is every person who works in the company.
The care and the care for each other, that is a feature of the way that we operate. Our focus on achievement and excellence, I believe will survive me. Our people continue to work at Lynas because they get satisfaction from their jobs, they know they're doing something which is valuable, and that they are valued for doing it. I think that too, after 12 years, will definitely survive me. Being an employer of choice, yeah, it's about making sure that we pay well and all of those things, but it's mostly about making sure that when you go home at the end of the day, you can say, "I made a difference today." We work very hard to make sure all of our people can feel like that when they go home every day.
Great. Thank you.
Your next question comes from Dim Ariyas inghe with UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi, Amanda. Hi, team. Thanks for the call. Can I just get an update on the LAMP license? It's due to expire on Monday. You know, it feels like it's maybe just a rubber stamp that you need, but, you know, in the unlikely case that it doesn't go ahead, what contingencies do you have? Can Cal step up to ensure that the rest of the quarter is okay? Yep, if that's one question, that's it.
Dim, I've got a lot constructive to say about sort of the hypothetical of, let's say, we don't get, you know, sort of an extension on the license. I don't think that that's likely to happen. I think that, you know, the licensing environment, as we indicated, has changed. The new legislation went through and was gazetted at the beginning of December last year. It certainly should ensure that we're no longer in this, you know, sort of every three years, what's gonna happen, but in a much more normalized licensing environment, where if we meet, you know, sort of our requirements, we can reasonably expect that the license will continue. As we've indicated, we've done the things that we need to do.
We've had the Atomic Energy Department has been in, done its audit. We've received a very satisfactory rating, which is the highest rating available, and we continue to run our operations safely for our people and our communities and the environment. You know, would I have liked all of this to be resolved a month ago? Yeah, that's not the way the system works. You know, we will provide you with an update, I would expect, within the next few days.
Yeah, yeah.
Your next question comes from Paul Young with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hi, Amanda. Hi, Amanda, hope you're well. Just that this one should be pretty easy. I've noticed that you got a really good provisional pricing tailwind in the half of about $20 million. Your revenue beat the Street's expectations, and it was well above the cash receipts because of receivables increase in inventories, etc. Just on the provisional pricing tailwind, just to help us out going forward, 'cause you should actually see this benefit over the next six months as well, like a revenue tailwind on repricing of product you've forward sold, but the price hasn't been locked down. Can you just help us just think about or just explain what your quotational pricing period is? Like, as far as...
We can actually just judge provisional pricing adjustments going forward.
I can't give you chapter and verse on that, Paul, because it is different by customer, and the provisional pricing mostly relates to sales which are made into Japan. Sojitz carries that inventory and does actually denominate certain inventory for certain customers, which is why sometimes the tail is longer than we might otherwise expect it to be. I'll invite Gannon to speak to it as well, but I would think that we should have most of it find its way through the system, sort of within the next three months.
Yeah.
Gannon, did you want to add anything to that?
Yeah, Paul, I think that's correct. You see it on the balance sheet, the receivable side already. Yeah, it depends sale by sale. Also, when the final sale is made to the customer, that varies between one month and three months. Probably best you take, if you want to model it, take about a two to three months lagging impact into consideration, then probably another three months before you see the cash really coming in or going out. I mean, it's positive at the moment, has not always been like that, but we obviously enjoyed the current setup. Okay, I hope that helps.
A little bit more color, Paul, because I think it's an interesting question. A little bit more color. Yeah, we basically invoice when it leaves our factory gate. We go through a process of then tolling it in our toll metal makers, and then it goes from there into the magnet makers. That actual, that's part of what drives the difference here, and that is, as Gaudenz Sturzenegger said, it's at least a two-month period that we're talking about before it finds its way into the magnet maker. Yeah, for modeling purposes, I think that you could assume a two to three month sort of lag is reasonable.
Yeah, that's perfect. Thank you both. That's, that's great. Appreciate it.
Thanks.
Your next question comes from Austin Yun with Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity to do a quick follow-up. Just looking at your term deposit, I came to understand how did you explain the budget for that figure? Should we assume that the remaining balance will be what you've set aside, minus, you know, working capital requirements set aside for the downstream-
I'm sorry, Austin. Austin, I'm sorry, you've just been garbled on my line. I don't. I, can you start this question again, please?
apologies. Sorry.
I can't understand what you're asking.
Sorry. I'm keen to understand the thinking for this term deposit and the remaining cash for the next 12 months. Would that be the amount you set aside for this ionic clay project in Malaysia and also the downstream plant, the capital requirement?
That's basically a treasury question. I'll let Gaudenz Sturzenegger do that. I mean, in terms of allocation into the different projects, we will disclose those as we finalize each of the projects. We've disclosed the AUD 180 million on the heavy rare earths. We understand the profile of expenditure of that money and are managing it accordingly. In general terms, treasury, I'll let Gaudenz Sturzenegger say a few words to that.
Yeah. There, I think it's probably better to look at it as a very dynamic process. I wouldn't really draw conclusions as you try to do that this is really specifically for certain spendings later on. I think also the terms we have there in that category are between or beyond three months, but shorter than 12 months. It's more interest optimization approach we have there. I would not read too much into the figure as such. Overall, we try to have a balanced approach, a cautious approach, but obviously, at the same time, optimizing the interest income.
At the moment, some of the shorter durations are better than the longer ones, so it's pretty mixed.
There are no further questions at this time.
Excellent.
I'll now hand back to Ms. Amanda Lacaze for closing remarks.
Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you all for your participation today and the questions that you have asked. As with, I think, every CEO, I would remind you that any day that ends in a Y is a good day for Lynas and Lynas shareholders. I look forward to seeing many of you over the next week or so. Thanks. Bye.
That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.