KUALA LUMPUR: Australian rare earths company Lynas Corp’s operation permit has been renewed for another six months.
The Atomic Energy Licensing Board (AELB), in a statement, said that although the government has agreed to the renewal of its license, Lynas must comply with three conditions imposed on them.
Lynas must first come up with a plan to build a “Cracking and Leaching” facility abroad to transfer the process away from its current plant in Gebeng, Kuantan.
“The Cracking and Leaching facility abroad must be built and become operational within four years starting from the effective licensing date.
“After the Cracking and Leaching facility is operational overseas, the license holder (Lynas) will no longer be allowed to produce radioactive residue for more than 1 Becquerel per gram at its Gebeng plant in Kuantan,” said AELB.
AELB said the rare earths mining company must identify a specific location to build a Permanent Disposal Facility (PDF) and also obtain written permission from the state government involved in order to use the location.
Lynas must also come up with a complete development plan for the PDF, including a payment plan to bear the total cost of the building and the PDF operation, AELB added.
“(Lynas must) come up with an official written permission by the relevant authorities to transfer the Water Leach Purification (WLP) residue to the country involved.”
The third condition imposed on Lynas was for the company to stop all of its research and development (R&D) activities.
“This involved the usage of WLP’s radioactive residue as Condisoil in the agricultural field and it must provide 0.5 per cent of its yearly gross sales set for the previous R&D efforts to the Malaysian government as additional collateral until its overseas Cracking and Leaching facility is operational,” the statement read.
This decision, said AELB, was made following the Australian government and the Western Australian state government’s statement to Malaysia that they would not accept the WLP radioactive residue produced by Lynas to be sent back there.
The decision was also reached based on the suggestions made by the Lynas Advanced Materials Plant (LAMP) Operations Evaluation Executive Committee in its report in Nov 2018.
“The building of the PDF must be expedited to minimise the risk of the WLP radioactive residue piling up which now stands at 580,000 tonnes at the residue storage facility (RSF) which is exposed to natural disasters such as flood.
“The AELB will monitor this closely to ensure the building and the operation of the PDF is according to international standards.”
Lynas has been embroiled in controversy for several years, with environmentalists and Pakatan Harapan politicians protesting against the plant on health grounds and calling for its closure.
Critics were particularly concerned about the potential adverse health effects that the radioactive waste would potentially have on local communities.
Lynas' permit renewal became a hot topic given that it is the world's only major producer of rare earths outside China.