17 August
Lynas has reported revenue of $305.1m for the full year ending 30 June 2020, which represented a $58.4m drop compared to last year, with the fall due to temporary production halts and weak market conditions amid the Covid-19 pandemic. The revenues were impacted by a shutdown of the company’s Malaysian plant for six weeks in accordance with the Malaysian government’s movement control order to suppress the spread of the virus. Lynas CEO and managing director Amanda Lacaze said that the company entered the pandemic in “robust financial shape” but its financial performance had been hit by the shutdown and lower market prices for rare earths.
Go deeper with GlobalData
The two biggest nickel miners in the Philippines, Global Ferronickel Holdings and Nickel Asia, said that they do not expect further disruptions to their operations this year, after posting lower first-half ore sales due to Covid-19 lockdown measures. Global Ferronickel kept its shipment target of five million wet metric tonnes (wmt) for this year. Nickel Asia reported it was “cautiously optimistic” that shipments this year will be close to the 2019 level of 18.8 million wmt.
Iluka Resources has been hit by the Covid-19 pandemic as it saw a 20% fall in mineral sands sales volumes in the first half of the year. During this period, the company sold 242,000t of zircon/rutile/synthetic rutile, and reported lower than expected sales for synthetic rutile. Iluka managing director Tom O’Leary, however, said that the fall had been less than that experienced in previous periods of market weakness.
