By Rhiannon Hoyle

Lynas Rare Earths Ltd. Friday reported a record annual profit and said earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, amortization and treasury charges quadrupled in the year through June. Here are some remarks from its earnings filings.

On rare-earths demand:

"The demand for Lynas products, in particular for our NdPr [neodymium-praseodymium] product family, continued to grow through the year. This led to record sales and cash collection in the final quarter of fiscal year 2021. Despite the global shortage of semi-conductors which affects all industries and in particular, the automotive industry, the NdFeB [neodymium-iron-boron magnet] market is experiencing very strong growth, supporting the demand for NdPr and the HRE [heavy rare earths] produced by Lynas. At the same time, the demand for catalyst from the automotive and the FCC [fluid catalytic cracking] sectors is back to its pre-Covid levels. Pleasingly, the rare earths market rebound despite the ongoing pandemic reinforces the importance of this critical material globally."

On prices:

"The average China domestic price of NdPr (VAT excluded) increased from US$36.00 a kilogram in June 2020 to US$64.70 a kilogram in June 2021. Future market price trends continue to depend on end product demand (in particular in the automotive industry). Lynas has focused on developing strong customer relationships with strategic customers, primarily outside China. Lynas is the leading supplier of the NdPr family of products to the Japanese market. Demand from our key customers has consistently increased over the past few years, with accelerated growth in the last 12 months."

On production:

"Total production volumes have increased despite the ongoing challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic in Malaysia. The EMCO (Enhanced Malaysian Control-Order) enforced by the Malaysian Government for the 3rd wave of Covid-19 required staff on site to be limited to 40% of our total workforce. Despite this, and water supply disruptions to the Gebeng industrial estate in the June quarter, the team successfully maintained production at just over 75% of Lynas Next production capacity. This provided stable supply to our key customers. We are pleased that 98% of Lynas Malaysia staff have now received their first vaccination dose and 94% have received their second dose as vaccination is the best protection. However, the prevalence of Covid-19 in the community requires that we continue our extensive testing programme and isolation of staff that have been exposed to positive cases which may, from time to time, affect our production outcomes"

On growth plans:

"Progress on the Lynas 2025 projects continued during the financial year and a number of milestones were achieved, including further exploration of our Mt Weld resource. The establishment of two new exploration drill holes below the current Mt Weld pit floor identified significant and continuous intersections of Rare Earth minerals below the current life of mine and in June 2021, Lynas successfully completed a one kilometre deep exploration drilling at Mt Weld. The results will expand the ore body knowledge of the Mt Weld REE [rare earth elements] deposit and will assist planning for future resource expansion drilling into the fresh carbonatite."

Write to Rhiannon Hoyle at rhiannon.hoyle@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

08-26-21 1858ET