Premier to announce $75m minerals plant in Townsville

A $75m critical minerals demonstration facility is to be built by the Labor state government in Townsville to help unlock Queensland’s next mining and manufacturing boom.

A $75m critical minerals demonstration facility is to be built by the Labor state government in Townsville to help unlock Queensland’s next mining and manufacturing boom.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk will announce the facility, to be built in the Cleveland Bay Industrial Park in Stuart, in Townsville on Wednesday.

It builds on previous announcements where the government initially estimated the cost of a common-user facility would be at least $10m.

In a statement, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the critical minerals demonstration facility would be an Australian-first and process not only vanadium but critical minerals like cobalt and rare earth elements.

“This facility will prove up the commerciality of critical minerals in Queensland creating jobs not just in mining but in processing and manufacturing,” Ms Palaszczuk said.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk. Picture David Clark

“Critical minerals are needed to build the SuperGrid, batteries and the wind and solar farms under the Queensland Energy and Jobs Plan.”

An image of proposed warehouse developments in the new Cleveland Bay Industrial Park in the Townsville State Development Area.

Ms Palaszczuk said the Sun Metals zinc refinery had established a world leading green industrial precinct at Stuart, while new players, like Queensland Pacific Metals, which is planning a $2bn battery metals refinery, had secured agreement with General Motors to supply minerals for electric vehicle batteries.

Vanadium is hosted in the limestone sediments of what was once an ancient inland sea in central and northern Queensland.

“The opportunities in North Queensland include mining and processing the minerals for vanadium, zinc bromine and iron flow batteries, cobalt and nickel used in lithium-ion batteries, high-purity alumina for LEDs, batteries and semiconductors, rare earth elements used in electronics and silicon for solar panels and semiconductors,” Ms Palaszczuk said.

Minister for Resources Scott Stewart said there was enormous potential for vanadium mining and production in North Queensland.

“Global demand for vanadium in batteries and high-quality steel is expected to outpace supply before the end of the decade. Queensland has world class, highly economic deposits of vanadium located in accessible marine shale,” Mr Stewart said.

“Vanadium has the potential to be the Eureka moment for North Queensland.

“There is already interest from companies in using the facility and once the market sees the quality of Queensland’s valuable resources for themselves, they will have confidence to invest in commercial scale facilities and downstream manufacturing infrastructure creating thousands of good skilled jobs for Queenslanders.”

The government is funding the development partly through its controversial new progressive coal royalties program.

It says the critical minerals demonstration facility is expected to commence operations by the first half of 2025.

Originally published as Premier to announce $75m minerals plant in Townsville