Repeated power disruptions at Lynas Rare Earths’ (ASX:LYC) Kalgoorlie facility will reduce mixed rare earth carbonate production in Q4 2025 and flow through to finished product volumes from Malaysia.
The Kalgoorlie plant in Western Australia draws electricity from Western Power’s Eastern Goldfields Load Permissive Scheme, which Lynas joined in 2021 on the basis that reliability would support safe, efficient operations.
Lynas reports outage frequency and duration have escalated during 2025, with November interruptions already causing “significant lost production” of mixed rare earth carbonate.
The shortfall cannot be recovered in time to supply Malaysia for processing within the current quarter, because the Malaysian kilns are shut for scheduled major maintenance.
While the power supply remains unpredictable, Lynas estimates the quarterly impact could be roughly equivalent to one month of production, though it will still produce enough finished material to meet key customer needs.
Lynas is working with the state government and Western Power to identify the causes of outages and lift power availability, but even in a best-case scenario those fixes will not arrive soon enough to change the current quarter’s forecast.
In parallel, the company is assessing off-grid power options. Lynas says that if it can implement a short-term off-grid generation solution, it expects to recover lost mixed rare earth carbonate output within the financial year.
For Lynas, the immediate focus is stabilising feedstock supply out of Kalgoorlie ahead of Malaysia’s restart, while securing a more reliable power pathway to protect 2026 production schedules.
The Kalgoorlie processing facility is the first of its kind in Australia and undertakes value-added processing of rare earths. The facility has been designed to process rare earth concentrate from the Mt Weld Mine and has the ability to accept third-party feedstock from other projects as they come online.
This content was created with AI assistance and human editing.
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Images: Lynas Rare Earths
