Lynas Rare Earths Limited (ASX:LYC)
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Earnings Call: Q1 2027

Oct 28, 2026

Summary

Gross sales and production reached quarterly records, supported by strong demand and higher prices. Planned maintenance is expected to lower Q2 production, while inventory protects sales; management expects substantial production growth in the March and June quarters.

Operator

Welcome to the Lynas Rare Earths October quarterly results briefing. Following the formal presentation, there will be a Q&A session. Investors and analysts can ask live audio questions during today's call. To ask a live audio question, press the Request to Speak button at the top of the broadcast window. The broadcast will be replaced by the Audio Question screen. Use the dial-in number and access pin provided to ask your question via the phone. Alternatively, for those on a home or personal network, you can ask your questions via the web by pressing Join Queue. If prompted, select Allow in the pop-up to grant access to your microphone. If you have any issues using the platform, dial-in details can also be found on the homepage under Asking Audio Questions. Press the Documents icon to see today's files and platform instructions.

Select a document to open it, and you can still listen to the meeting while you read. I will now hand over to Lynas.

Speaker 2

Good morning, and welcome to Lynas's quarterly report for the period ending 30 September 2026. On the call today, we have Pol Le Roux, Interim CEO, Gaudenz Sturzenegger, CFO, Daniel Havas, Chief External Affairs Officer, and Sarah Leonard, General Counsel and Company Secretary. I will now hand over to Pol. Please go ahead.

Pol Le Roux
Interim CEO, Lynas Rare Earths

Thank you, Lauren. Good morning, everybody. I am taking the call from Seoul, Korea, where I am attending the Metal Events conference, the oldest rares conference, where I will give a speech right after this call. I can tell you that in the business rares world, Lynas is seen as a winner, and it is quite easy for me to give a presentation. Coming to the quarter, I have to say that while Lynas team is always engaged to maximize the company performance, there are quarters where reporting our activities to our shareholders is easier. This is one indeed. It has been a very rewarding quarter. A quarter of records of gross sales, records of production. Our new sales record is now AUD 310 million for the quarter. That is 7% up compared to previous quarter. It is 55% up compared to first quarter last year.

This record is supported by the continued positive dynamics of market, the confirmed appetite for secured rare earth supply chain outside China, and the subsequent high market price. It is also supported by the demonstrated ability of Lynas team to actually deliver on its commitment. Finally, it is supported by our sales strategy where we make profit of our position as the only Dy-Tb supplier outside China to combine our sales to magnet makers, sales of NdPr and heavy rares, so that we can secure long-term partnership with our customers. This favorable market environment is pushing us to grow as fast as possible, growing our NdPr and heavies production. The team has responded to that push with new records. Mt Weld reached in September, a performance way above the downstream need at nameplate capacity. That is a great achievement.

As I said in the previous call, the ramp-up of Mt Weld is astonishing. LAMP, compensating for July, which was still impacted by our previous quarter quality issues. LAMP has delivered a production record in August and need to beat it again in September, establishing a new record of NdPr production. Dy-Tb production volumes continue to grow in line with NdPr, supporting our combined sales strategy with magnet makers outside China. Our supply of Dy-Tb of this kind outside China is very welcomed by the market, the market needs more. To that purpose, we are finalizing our plan to move forward mining activities at Mt Weld into the Dy-Tb rich zones. This appears as the fastest way to substantially increase our Dy-Tb supply to the market. Another way to increase our Dy-Tb supply is the announced intention to acquire Meteoric.

Caldeira is the largest known ionic clay deposit outside China. It is a cost-competitive additional resource for rares with a higher Dy-Tb and NdPr ratio in line with the market demand. It can fit perfectly LAMP process set up, and a detailed study has commenced between Lynas and Meteoric to optimize the overall performance from mine to big bag. Downstream, this quarter has also seen the signature of our long-term partnership with JS Link , who is starting the construction of a magnet factory in Malaysia, in addition to their existing factory in Korea. Finally, we are finalizing our agreement with LS Eco who will build a metal facility in the existing site in Vietnam. This is primarily addressing samarium, pure Dy, pure terbium metal, element that are essential for delivering high-performance magnet making. Meanwhile, on the HRE separation projects, the construction is on track with the previous announcement.

All in all, a very good quarter that is in line with our growth plan towards 2030. On that note, I would be happy to answer questions together with Sarah , Gaudenz, and Daniel . We will try our best to answer any question you may have following this quarter.

Operator

Thanks, Pol. If you have not yet joined the live audio queue, please do so now. To hear from as many people as possible, we request that you ask one question at a time. If you have more questions, please rejoin the queue. I will introduce each caller by name and ask you to go ahead. You will then hear a beep indicating that your microphone is live. Our first question comes from Jonathan Sharp of JP Morgan. Jonathan, please go ahead.

Jonathan Sharp
Analyst, JPMorgan

Morning, Pol, Daniel, and team. Just first question or my only question on sales. Production was about 1.2 thousand tons ahead of sales this quarter. Can you just talk us through what's sitting in the inventory by products? And roughly what NdPr sales were, if you can. And how much of the record average ASP came from sales mix rather than higher pricing? Thanks.

Pol Le Roux
Interim CEO, Lynas Rare Earths

Sorry, you're asking how much inventory we have in end of the quarter. Is it correct, Jonathan?

Jonathan Sharp
Analyst, JPMorgan

Yeah, and in particular, NdPr.

Pol Le Roux
Interim CEO, Lynas Rare Earths

NdPr, you know that the previous quarter we were a bit disappointed with our production performance, so we shipped as much product as possibly. Of course, the best production being in September, that explains probably why you see the cash collection is not as high as the gross sales. But you can see that we invoice most of our product, and we always keep just a few days of stock end of the quarter.

Jonathan Sharp
Analyst, JPMorgan

Okay, great. I'll jump to the end of the queue. Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Rahul Anand of Morgan Stanley. Rahul, please go ahead.

Rahul Anand
Analyst, Morgan Stanley

Oh, hi, Pol and team. Good morning. Thank you for the call. My one question is on the maintenance shut for December. So I know that you did do a six-week shut about three years ago, and this one seems to be similar or in line with that. But I guess you were at a different stage at that time as a company in terms of what your plant was producing in Malaysia. And this time, I think you also have a Kalgoorlie shut that's incorporated within. Can you help us understand perhaps the nature of the upgrades you're doing this time and sort of what are the main items of work that are happening over this four-week period? And what do you expect as, I guess, a benefit on the other side? Is there any improvement in recoveries or anything else you'd like to call out? Thanks.

Pol Le Roux
Interim CEO, Lynas Rare Earths

Okay. So that's a question and a long answer for a simple question. Basically, every year, you see from October, December is the period of time where we execute the most of our preventive maintenance. The primary objective of this shutdown is to execute necessary preventive maintenance, and that concerns in particular one kiln in Kuantan, which needs to have the bricks replaced. Combined with this, we had the request from Western Power in Kalgoorlie for them to upgrade the grid for hopefully improving the reliability of the grid in Kalgoorlie. That will force us to shut down Kalgoorlie for a bit more than two weeks. Whereas the Kuantan work will represent overall a month of maintenance. The things we do on top of preventive maintenance is that we work on small modifications to increase our nameplate capacity in Kuantan, so before cracking.

Whereas at the moment, our bottleneck is more on the gas treatment, so we're trying to solve that with a few modifications. At the same time, we found ways to further increase the nameplate capacity downstream. So that's on Kuantan side, the two elements for us to be ready for the next quarter to deliver maximum production. In Kalgoorlie, we still have a few modifications to make to improve the OEE of, sorry, the reliability of equipment mainly. We make profit of this forced two-week shutdown to execute those modifications and improvements so that we are aiming at starting the January quarter at maximum speed and better equipped to maximize our production.

Rahul Anand
Analyst, Morgan Stanley

Got it. Okay. Quite interesting to see the Kuantan cracking improvement there. Are you able to call out how much more that would be there in terms of additions, or is that too early to talk about?

Pol Le Roux
Interim CEO, Lynas Rare Earths

Well, let me demonstrate that with the next quarter figures. But what I can tell you is we have four kilns, and they are on two different gas treatments. When you shut down one kiln out of two on one single gas treatment, you notice that we can push the production higher than half of the capacity, which clearly indicates the bottleneck is in the gas treatment. I won't give you numbers, I'm sorry, because I prefer to demonstrate rather than claiming, but it's substantial enough for us to have decided to execute this modification this quarter.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Chen Jiang of Bank of America. Chen, please go ahead.

Chen Jiang
Analyst, Bank of America

Good morning, Pol. Thank you for taking my question. Just to follow up on the sales production and also the one month. First, pretty good to say you don't have any ore quality or operational issues this quarter, so congrats. For the sales versus production this quarter, did you do that on purpose because you have one month shut down, so you are building the inventory that you can maintain your sales in December month when you shut down your production? Another follow-up after this. Thank you.

Pol Le Roux
Interim CEO, Lynas Rare Earths

I would be happy to run a factory where no preventive maintenance is needed, but as you know, we always maximize production. I would say the other way around. We are very happy to have delivered this production record last quarter so that we are more comfortable supplying our customers, and we feel very comfortable. We will not make them short of product in this quarter, which typically is the moment when we concentrate the maintenance. We didn't push on purpose because of the shutdown plan in the second quarter. We always push, and it's very fortunate that the production went so well in this quarter, of course. We'll continue pushing despite the shutdown during this quarter, the current quarter.

Chen Jiang
Analyst, Bank of America

Right. Thanks, Pol.

Pol Le Roux
Interim CEO, Lynas Rare Earths

Lost you, Chen.

Chen Jiang
Analyst, Bank of America

That's all right. Can you hear me? No?

Pol Le Roux
Interim CEO, Lynas Rare Earths

I lost you for a minute. Can you repeat, please?

Chen Jiang
Analyst, Bank of America

Just another way to ask this question. Do you have enough rare earth oxide inventory, especially NdPr and Dy and Tb, during the shutdown period to fulfill your sales? It's a more near-term question, but for your sales in second quarter, during your shutdown, should I think about you have inventory, then there's no impact to your sales?

Pol Le Roux
Interim CEO, Lynas Rare Earths

Yeah. We have enough inventory. We follow that very closely with our customers. They are used to that. The second quarter is always lower than the first one and the others. We are very comfortable in that. There will not be anyone cut short of supply during the quarter. A big part of this inventory is actually now sales because it is carried by our distributor in Japan. They carry the inventory for us.

Chen Jiang
Analyst, Bank of America

Right. It is fair to say that production loss of one month, you can continue to sell to your customers without any impact. Is that a fair conclusion from what you just mentioned?

Pol Le Roux
Interim CEO, Lynas Rare Earths

Absolutely, Chen. Absolutely.

Chen Jiang
Analyst, Bank of America

Okay. Great to hear. Thank you. I might call you back. Thanks, Pol.

Pol Le Roux
Interim CEO, Lynas Rare Earths

Thanks.

Operator

Our next question is from Paul Young, from Goldman Sachs. Paul, please go ahead.

Paul Young
Analyst, Goldman Sachs

Thanks. Good day, Pol and team. Pol, another question about the ramp and also the impact from the maintenance shut. Actually more so, I just want to look through the next quarter, and into the June half, considering that you make the comment that Mt Weld has actually been running really well and the ramp in July and August. Which should imply, based on the lag of getting the concentrate, either through Kalgoorlie cracking and leaching, and then ore transported to Malaysia through the cracking and leaching facility, that you should actually have quite a decent positive inflection in production in the March quarter and the June quarter, just because that lag from Mt Weld and getting it produced into oxide. Can you maybe just talk through just how well Mt Weld has been performing from an NdPr production standpoint?

Is my logic correct, that post a shut that's based on that six-month lag or so, that March quarter, we should have seen quite a decent inflection in NdPr production?

Pol Le Roux
Interim CEO, Lynas Rare Earths

Definitely, we are looking forward to a substantial increase in Q3, Q4, March and June quarter. Mt Weld has now everything operational except for the, what we call the IsaMill, which is not aiming at increasing production, but improving the recovery. That should come up by end of this current quarter. It's very positive element for us to see that concentrate-wise, we are well covered with the current performance of Mt Weld. All the gain will be to maximize both the cracking leaching in Kuantan and the cracking leaching in Kalgoorlie. Since, as I said last time, the downstream part now is already demonstrated at nameplate. As I mentioned just a while ago, we are even working on increasing further this nameplate capacity downstream. Yeah, looking forward for very good results in the third and fourth quarters here.

Paul Young
Analyst, Goldman Sachs

Yeah, thanks. So just to maybe expand on that, seeing as a few people are having follow-ups, but does that mean that you have some degree of confidence you can test the nameplate of the refinery of 10.5 thousand, 10.8 thousand tons per annum in the March quarter and June quarter?

Pol Le Roux
Interim CEO, Lynas Rare Earths

At least, yeah.

Paul Young
Analyst, Goldman Sachs

Okay, great. Excellent. Good to hear. I will pass that on. That is what I want to hear. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Mitch Ryan of Jefferies. Mitch, please go ahead.

Mitch Ryan
Analyst, Jefferies

Thank you for taking my question this morning. Following on from Young's question and also the discrepancy between production and sales, we've got this positive inflection into the second half from an NdPr production perspective. What comfort can you give me that then sales will also grow on the same trajectory? You've talked anecdotally that the demand is there, but the differential between production and sales volumes in this quarter, can you explain that differential and why that will resolve in the second half?

Pol Le Roux
Interim CEO, Lynas Rare Earths

Listen, I'm surprised with this question, to be honest. We have absolutely no problem to sell more NdPr, and even less, more dysprosium. The only point is, it's simply a shipment matter that makes it end of the quarter. Since our production was really excellent in September and particularly in the second half of September, of course, part of the production couldn't be invoiced. There is absolutely no worries on our side, and all the discussions I have with customers show that there is only more appetite to buy more from us, and absolutely no concern there. It will continue being a game where sales pulls the production and not the other way around. I don't know how I can give you more comfort than that, but I really have zero concern about the demand side.

Mitch Ryan
Analyst, Jefferies

Okay. Thank you. That's it from me.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Daniel Morgan of Barrenjoey. Daniel, please go ahead.

Daniel Morgan
Analyst, Barrenjoey

Hi, Pol. The question is very similar to some of the others on sales mix and production versus sales. You provide NdPr production, you also provide REO production, but on the sales side, you give REO and not NdPr. I think a lot of the participants on the call would like an indication when looking at revenue, realized price, what is the sales mix? Can you provide some indication of what NdPr sales volumes were? Was the ratio in line with what we can see as a visible sales lag in production, or? We are just trying to understand how to look at realized price versus the benchmarks we are looking at in the market. Thank you.

Pol Le Roux
Interim CEO, Lynas Rare Earths

Yeah, I think it is a good suggestion, Daniel. I realize when I look at the table, it can be confusing. You know probably that we started two years ago, and we are continuing that, removing low-value rares as early as possible in the process. What I mean with that is mainly cerium or cerium lanthanum, which are not worth processing all the way through. That is the reason why you do not have, in a sales ratio, probably we will think of putting a line with the NdPr sales volume. That will be easier for everyone to understand. But the content of NdPr in the total REO is higher than the natural rares distribution because we actually eliminate upstream as much as possible, cerium lanthanum. I understand better now where the confusion comes from there.

Daniel Morgan
Analyst, Barrenjoey

Well, could I just follow up on that side?

Pol Le Roux
Interim CEO, Lynas Rare Earths

We will try to improve for next reporting.

Daniel Morgan
Analyst, Barrenjoey

Yeah. There's a few drivers here which could still lead to confusion, sorry, Pol, which is, NdPr, of course, you produce that more than the assemblage in the ore because it's more valuable. So we understand that the NdPr, the production ratio to the REO ratio, we understand that that would be different to the assemblage in the ore. But I guess we're also trying to understand in the sales piece, what is the mix of NdPr in it, because how else can we judge whether your realized price is a good one or not? That's what we're trying to understand, I guess.

Pol Le Roux
Interim CEO, Lynas Rare Earths

Yeah. I understand that, and for that, we should show you the exact sales numbers of NdPr, which we haven't done and which we'll try to implement from next report. I can tell you that the number of sales of NdPr is extremely close to the production of NdPr through the quarter. Just to clarify, when we eliminate sales upstream the production, it's not accounted for as a production. Yeah. We'll clarify that-

Daniel Morgan
Analyst, Barrenjoey

Yeah. Okay. Sorry, just to-

Pol Le Roux
Interim CEO, Lynas Rare Earths

For this time. Yeah.

Daniel Morgan
Analyst, Barrenjoey

Yeah. Just to clarify, is the NdPr sales within the REO sales, is that broadly indicative of a normal mix?

Pol Le Roux
Interim CEO, Lynas Rare Earths

We had around 2,100 tons or 2,082 tons of NdPr or Nd and Pr ready for sales in the quarter. The actual sales of NdPr in this same quarter was extremely close to this number. That's what I can say at this stage.

Daniel Morgan
Analyst, Barrenjoey

Okay. Thank you, Pol, for the answer.

Operator

Our next question comes from Neal Dingmann of William Blair. Neal, please go ahead.

Neal Dingmann
Analyst, William Blair

What's up? Morning, Pol. Nice to talk to you again. My question is on the JS Link partnership. Specifically, do you have any insight on general timing of when this plant will come on, and maybe more specifically, what the price in terms of the rare earth materials you'll supply, how you'll come up with that pricing agreement?

Pol Le Roux
Interim CEO, Lynas Rare Earths

I can't talk on behalf of JS Link, but they made a very good presentation yesterday at the conference, advertising a lot Lynas, which is good. What I know is from them, and I have a meeting with them tomorrow, more in detail, but they ordered all the main equipment for the Malaysian factory. We're talking here about start of first production for qualification probably by early 2028 calendar year. The site is selected. You know, magnet factory is all about bringing in the main equipments. It's not like a chemical factory with lots of piping. They are fully aligned and Korean style, palli palli, they go as fast as possible, and I don't see, as of today, any reason to worry that they would be late.

Neal Dingmann
Analyst, William Blair

Very good. Thank you, Pol.

Operator

Our next question comes from Matthew Hope from Ord Minnett. Matthew, please go ahead.

Matthew Hope
Analyst, Ord Minnett

Thank you. I just wanted to follow up on your comment that a lot of your inventory is held by a distributor in Japan. I was just wondering, is that logged as part of your sales? Is that material actually paid on delivery, or is it paid when the distributor sells it?

Pol Le Roux
Interim CEO, Lynas Rare Earths

No, it is paid on delivery plus some payment terms that are our agreement with them. When I say they carry the inventory, it means that we invoice, they pay, and then they get the money back when they sell. We are paid from the product to their stock.

Matthew Hope
Analyst, Ord Minnett

Yeah, sorry, you were dropping out there. I couldn't really hear the second part of you.

Pol Le Roux
Interim CEO, Lynas Rare Earths

They carry the inventory. It means that-

Matthew Hope
Analyst, Ord Minnett

Yep.

Pol Le Roux
Interim CEO, Lynas Rare Earths

the payment to Lynas by them is made based on the shipment of product from Lynas to their stocks, not the shipment from their stocks to the final customer. They really carry the working capital, in other words.

Matthew Hope
Analyst, Ord Minnett

Right. Okay. Thank you very much. Just one other question, just you were talking about in the quarterly about the Mt Weld cutback to access more heavier rare earth material

Pol Le Roux
Interim CEO, Lynas Rare Earths

Yeah

Matthew Hope
Analyst, Ord Minnett

which surrounds the Central Lanthanide Deposit. When do you expect that may take place, and is that going to have a heavy capital cost?

Pol Le Roux
Interim CEO, Lynas Rare Earths

Well, it's anticipation. It's a substantial amount, but it's an amount of mining activity that we would have proceeded if things go normal in, let's say, tree to five years' time. Because that's the way the mine That's where the zone is located. What we are finalizing now is actually mining ahead so that we can process ASAP this Dy rich zone, and therefore, deliver much higher, substantially higher quantity of dysprosium terbium to the market. The exact amount and time will be communicated very soon, as soon as we finalize that. But it's the fastest way because I don't need any permitting. We know the process because at the end of the day, it's the same process like today. Just a matter of moving dirt. A lot of dirt, but okay.

I think it's basically the best, and I discussed that with a number of customers in the conference. They all wait for that because they're all desperate to get more Dy-Tb in the market, and that's the fastest way to get it.

Matthew Hope
Analyst, Ord Minnett

Sure. Okay. Thank you very much.

Operator

We have another question from Jonathan Sharp from JP Morgan. Jonathan, please go ahead.

Jonathan Sharp
Analyst, JPMorgan

Yeah. Hi, Pol. Thanks for taking my second question. Just an update on the CEO, that would be great. Just on how that's going, timing, when the market will know. Just anything on that would be good. Thanks.

John Humphrey
Chairman, Lynas Rare Earths

Yeah. Hi, it's John Humphrey speaking, the Chair of Lynas. The permanent CEO appointment process is continuing. It will take as long as it takes. Lynas is a unique company, and we're looking for a unique person as the next CEO. In the meantime, the company's in good hands under the interim CEO, as you can hear from the latest operations report. That is really the update. We are not going to rush to do it, but having said that, obviously we'll do it as soon as we can.

Pol Le Roux
Interim CEO, Lynas Rare Earths

I might add something.

Jonathan Sharp
Analyst, JPMorgan

Okay, thanks.

Pol Le Roux
Interim CEO, Lynas Rare Earths

Jonathan, I would just add one thing. I understand your concern. On the other hand, the performance that we share with you for this quarter demonstrate, if needed, that the team is fully mobilized and not so disturbed by this situation.

Jonathan Sharp
Analyst, JPMorgan

Okay, great. Thanks for that. I might just ask a second question if I can. Just on the Meteoric acquisition, it seems like the market isn't giving it much value. Can you just talk on this particular asset, Pol? The work that I've done, it looks like a really good ionic clay deposit. Maybe just mention, what are the benefits here? What are we missing? What is the market missing? Anything there would be great.

Pol Le Roux
Interim CEO, Lynas Rare Earths

I think the Meteoric, we need to grow and to grow fast. We have Mt Weld, which is a great resource. It just happens that having a combination of a hard rock Mt Weld and the ionic clay deposit appears to make sense. Meteoric has, and we worked on this quite a lot, would fit very well into the Lynas processing setup, being quite cost competitive and very important aspect to me, it will also increase the quantity of dysprosium terbium that you produce in relation with the PR. Generally speaking, if you look at the magnet industry, for 30 tons of NdPr, you should have 1 ton of Dy-Tb. Anything that can get us closer to that is more than welcome, and Meteoric would be a great contributor to that.

This for us is really improving our setup, aligning us better to the market demand, and finally, giving us access to another area around the planet, where down the road maybe we'll manage to develop an ecosystem. You have in Brazil a very good, a very good level of expertise, technical expertise. I've been working many years in my previous company with Brazilian process engineers, maintenance. They are absolutely great, and so there is potential to be developed there. It's to be seen as a substantive adapt to the business of Lynas geographically and in terms of product mix. It's, for us, fantastic news.

Jonathan Sharp
Analyst, JPMorgan

Okay. Thanks, Pol. I'll pass it on.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Reg Spencer from Canaccord. Reg, please go ahead.

Reg Spencer
Analyst, Canaccord

Good morning, Pol. Thanks for taking my question. I am going to change tack a little bit here and just talk about market more broadly and geopolitics. Obviously, Trump and Xi kicked the proverbial can down the road in their recent meeting with the original November deadline on the relaxation of export controls into January next year. What is your expectation, or maybe asked a different way, what are the expectations of your customers as to the potential outcomes here? Or given the fact that Trump is involved, who the hell knows?

Pol Le Roux
Interim CEO, Lynas Rare Earths

You are asking me to predict the policy of a U.S. president? That is a challenge.

Reg Spencer
Analyst, Canaccord

I would never do that of anyone.

Pol Le Roux
Interim CEO, Lynas Rare Earths

I won't try that.

Reg Spencer
Analyst, Canaccord

I'm just kind of interested in-

Pol Le Roux
Interim CEO, Lynas Rare Earths

I will not try that.

Reg Spencer
Analyst, Canaccord

what, yeah.

Pol Le Roux
Interim CEO, Lynas Rare Earths

No, what is seriously, I think it's the second time we have a kind of rare earth crisis. A disruption of a supply chain linked to geopolitical issues rather than a simple supply-demand. The first one was in 2011, and at that time, I think there was a lot of excitement, a lot of projects, and everything collapsed very quickly. Lynas was the only one to survive through this market storm. This time, I think, and I see that in particular for the people who are the real decision-makers, the OEMs, the end users, and it's possible that the COVID has helped as well in this. There is a real strategy from OEMs to secure part of their supply from outside China. I don't know, and I don't want to anticipate on variations on the political landscape.

What I'm very convinced of is that the rare earth market is now different from where it was, and it will not come back to where it was before. There is a real strategy around the world to secure, to not be too dependent on one single source of raw material.

Reg Spencer
Analyst, Canaccord

What you're saying, Pol, is irrespective of whatever decision or resolution is made on the negotiations around export controls, you continue to expect Western supply chains to continue to work this at least some level of independence of China.

Pol Le Roux
Interim CEO, Lynas Rare Earths

Absolutely. I don't think China will ease some of their official and non-official decisions. Such as it is impossible for any expert in rare earth industry from China to work for a non-Chinese company. It is impossible to source equipment specific to rare earth processing from China to a magnet maker or a processor outside China. That's all the work and challenge that will remain. I don't see why China will all of a sudden ease the situation. I explained, especially the impact on that for our heavy rare separation. We were very dependent to China for a lot of equipment because the world had given up on making products, on making specific reactors, et cetera.

That's all the heavy work we had to build to rebuild an ecosystem where we can actually secure, and so it's the same to us, secure a source of equipment that we need to process to run our factories. This won't change. I don't see a reason why it would change. Building alliances outside China was challenging, but I can tell you it's more challenging today than it was 16 years ago.

Reg Spencer
Analyst, Canaccord

Thank you, Pol. We could talk about this for hours, but I'll pass it on. Thank you.

Operator

Our next question is from Neal Dingmann from William Blair. Neal, please go ahead.

Neal Dingmann
Analyst, William Blair

Thanks again, Pol. My question is on the Meteoric Resources again. Specifically, how do you all think about the margins that we produce or achieve from the ionic clay produced there versus the monazite variant ore you all are currently producing?

Pol Le Roux
Interim CEO, Lynas Rare Earths

What I can tell you is that when I say it is cost competitive, my reference is Mt Weld because producing from Mt Weld at Lynas, we proved that we could go through very tough times. Just a reminder, in July 2016, the price of NdPr was $29, and we did not die. It just happened that the specific rare earth distribution and very high concentration of ionic clay of Meteoric, so that is a very important aspect, makes it possible for this ionic clay to be cost competitive, which is not always the case. You have a lot of ionic clay and talks around ionic clay around the world, but with very low rare earths in the ground. Which means you move or you leach a lot more, and at the end of the day, deposits have a hard time to be cost competitive.

Meteoric has this specific situation of very high rare earths content in the ground. We are talking here about 2,500 PPM versus in some areas in Southeast Asia of 600 PPM. So you see the difference, and that was essential for us. We would not put our hands on something unless we know it can be cost competitive. Cost is our muscles, right? So we always focus on that.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Matthew Hope from Ord Minnett. Matthew, please go ahead.

Matthew Hope
Analyst, Ord Minnett

Yeah. I was just wondering about samarium. You did not say much about samarium in the quarterly. I did not see much. Were you still producing that, and did it increase from previous quarters?

Pol Le Roux
Interim CEO, Lynas Rare Earths

Yeah. We are producing samarium. The point is the specification of samarium, especially for samarium cobalt, is quite strict, and we adjusted our production to the time for the magnet makers to qualify. But we have set up a production for nameplate capacity of 400 tons a year, and there is no issue here. As soon as the qualifications are moving up, we will increase production in line with that. Phase two. At the moment, it is a bit marginal. I think it was 10 tons, around something like this in the quarter.

Matthew Hope
Analyst, Ord Minnett

Right. Okay. Thank you very much for that. Just another question on the Meteoric Caldeira. Are you planning to continue that on and push it forward as fast as it can go? It could probably start by 2029 if you got going ASAP. Are you planning to have a think about it or review it and see what it fits into your strategy more than just push it as hard as possible?

Pol Le Roux
Interim CEO, Lynas Rare Earths

At the moment, Meteoric plan was to start operation in 2031. We have started a detail engineering with the team of Meteoric and our team of R&D and engineering. Our aim is dual, actually. Number one is to optimize the total cost of ops from mine to big bag. Sometimes there are things you better do on the mine site rather than on the processing site, and vice versa. This is a detailed review that we are having now. The second objective is to go as fast as possible. It is too early to tell you when, but we have our hands on it at the moment. It is the most important aspect, how to as quickly as possible start Meteoric then.

Matthew Hope
Analyst, Ord Minnett

Right. Thank you very much for that.

Operator

Thank you. We have one more question from Chen Jiang from Bank of America. Chen, please go ahead.

Chen Jiang
Analyst, Bank of America

Thank you for taking my follow-up question. A follow-up question on Jonathan's question for the CEO search. I remember Meteoric announcement of 3rd April. We had the impression the CEO succession announcement is due in a few weeks because you have AGM coming November as well. Now, John, in the call earlier, you mentioned it will take as long as it takes, and you are looking for a unique person. I am just wondering, what is the definition of a unique person, and are you taking feedback from your shareholders on the CEO, and wondering why it is taking so long to looking for a CEO? Thank you.

John Humphrey
Chairman, Lynas Rare Earths

Okay. There are a number of questions in that. First of all, the rare earth industry is, or the outside China rare earth industry is comparatively small, and I think it justifies the, or Lynas's position justifies the description of unique because we have a large share of that outside China industry. In terms of the timing, I have said two things. The first is that the search will take as long as it takes, and secondly, we will proceed to appoint someone as soon as we can. I cannot really take things much further than that. Obviously, we will do it as fast as we can, but it has to be the right person.

Chen Jiang
Analyst, Bank of America

Thank you for that, John. Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. There are no further questions. I will now hand back to Pol for closing remarks.

Pol Le Roux
Interim CEO, Lynas Rare Earths

Okay. Thank you very much for I think we are looking forward for continuing increasing production, although we have some maintenance exercise during this quarter. We take your points, your questions. I remember the point, forgot who asked to have the sales of NdPr. I think it is not a problem to avoid the misunderstandings. We move forward in the next quarters with specifying the sales of NdPr versus total REO. If any questions, Daniel , Sarah, Gaudenz, myself, we are more than happy to answer your questions whenever you have one. Thank you very much, all.