MINING company Lynas has entered into a heavy rare earths separation plant joint venture in the US with Blue Line Corp, at a time when international fear around a rare earths shortage has nearly reached crisis point. The agreement comes as China moves to leverage its position as the sole producer of heavy rare earths in the latest ramp-up of trade tensions against the US. Lynas vice president of sales and marketing, Pol Le Roux, told The Australian Mining Review that the company had the capacity to fill the supply gap on all but two of the 17 elements that make up the rare earths: cerium and the group known as heavy rare earths. "China is not in a position of monopoly anymore, and the reason for that is Lynas," Mr Le Roux said. "Probably, if the Chinese could, they would remove us from the planet. "We disturbed their strategy."