Lynas Rare Earth (ASX:LYC) reported quarterly revenue of A$294.5 million and total REO production of 3,500 tonnes.
The company was challenged by water outages and equipment failure. In the previous quarter REO production was 4% higher at 3,650.
"This was a mixed quarter for Lynas," said managing director Amanda Lacaze in a news release.
"We continued to face significant operational challenges including a complete outage of water supply in Malaysia. A catastrophic equipment failure experienced by the local water supplier to our Malaysian facility resulted in approximately 16 days of lost production during the quarter."
The company said costs had gone up 15% for its $500m capacity expansion at Mt Weld.
Lacaze said rare earth prices were volatile during the quarter.
"Rare Earth prices were quite volatile during this quarter. NdPr oxide pricing started to decrease in July and this continued until mid-September prior to rebounding and stabilising at around 700 RMB/kg at the end of the quarter. This corresponds to USD88/kg CIF1 China. This pricing trend was triggered by concerns that the 25% production quota increase in China would lead to oversupply. However, once these concerns were found to be excessive, prices started to recover."
Lynas Rare Earths is the world's only significant producer of separated rare earth materials outside of China. The company's Mt Weld mine in Western Australia is acknowledged as one of the world's premier rare earths deposits.
Lynas also operates the world's largest single rare earths processing plant in Malaysia where it produces high-quality separated rare earth materials for export to manufacturing markets in Asia, Europe and the United States.
