As Lynas races against the July 1 deadline to have a cracking and leaching plant up and running in Western Australia, the company said it is preparing for the worst-case scenario – a partial shutdown of some of the downstream processing operations in Kuantan.

Lynas managing director Amanda Lacaze (above) said this is their contingency plan in case the cracking and leaching plant is not ready by the deadline, even though the construction was making excellent progress....