Lynas offered to fund waste management R&D in deal for licence
By Yow Hong Chieh, The Malaysian Insider
KUALA LUMPUR, May 27 — Australian mining giant Lynas Corp will set aside part of its earnings from its controversial processing plant in Gebeng to help Putrajaya sponsor research into how toxic rare earth can be disposed off safely, government sources have said.
A source told The Malaysian Insider that Lynas was asked to pay the government a “certain percentage” from its annual gross profit to undertake research and development on the management and disposal of radioactive waste or pay financial security.
Currently, rare earth waste products can only be buried, recycled or transmuted into non-radioactive material, although many small operations in China release toxic waste into the general water supply.
It is understood that the requirement was mooted as a condition of Lynas’ manufacturing licence by the Atomic Energy Licensing Board (AELB) during a meeting that also included representatives from the Malaysian Industrial Development Authority (Mida) and the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI).
While the source stressed that AELB — and not Mida or MITI — had asked for the security, he insisted that the security should not construed as indemnity against potentially hazardous waste that may result from processing rare earths at the Lynas Advanced Materials Plant (LAMP) in Gebeng, Pahang.
“There’s no such thing as an indemnity fund,” the source said.
Lynas told The Malaysian Insider last week that it had deposited money with Putrajaya “to ensure safe management of any remaining residues as required by the AELB”.
However, the company did not elaborate on the deposit or disclose the sum paid to AELB, charged by the Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry to approve and monitor radioactive industries.
But AELB director-general Raja Abdul Aziz Raja Adnan was quick to deny that his agency had made the deposit a requirement.
“It’s got nothing to do with AELB. You got to check with Mida, check with MITI,” he told The Malaysian Insider.
Mida and MITI successfully pulled Lynas to set up shop here after China — the world’s biggest rare earths producer — closed its doors to foreign firms to maintain its 97 per cent chokehold on the global rare earths market.
