Queensland’s Gladstone region has been chosen as the preferred location for a new $200 million high purity alumina industrial plant developed by Alpha HPA and the project is expected to support up to 100 regional jobs.
According to Minister for State Development Camreon Dick, Gladstone has been chosen as the preferred site to build the alumina plant after competing with two other interstate locations in Newcastle, New South Wales and Kwinana, Western Australia.
“This is a great opportunity for Gladstone.
“High purity alumina is a rapidly-growing market, being fuelled by the rising demand for high-technology items, such as lithium-ion battery separators used in electric vehicles, particularly in China and Europe,” Mr Dick said.
The new facility is going to be built on a 9.2 hectare site in the Gladstone State Development Area. The site was chosen by Alpha HPA due to the region’s “extensive infrastructure, industrial processing facilities and skilled workforce”.
“With the Port of Gladstone nearby and export-ready, and the proposed site located close to likely suppliers whose by-product will be used to extract the high purity alumina, it’s the ideal location,” Member for Gladstone Glenn Butcher said.
With this new facility, Alpha HPA will progress from a pilot plant to a large-scale advanced manufacturing operations.
“The Gladstone site enables us to be within two kilometres of Orica, who we have signed a Memorandum of Understanding with to be our supplier of key process reagents and the offtake of the by-product for the project, creating a circular economy process.
“A successful pilot plant has been operating in Brisbane, since July 2019, and using a low-cost extraction process we are producing around 3kg daily of >99.99 per cent pure alumina.
“We believe there is building global demand for our high purity alumina, with circa 70 lithium ion battery mega-factories under construction across four continents to meet the electric vehicle demand,” Alpha HPA’s Rimas Kairaitis said.
Alpha HPA will proceed to negotiate final purchase terms with the State Government for the Gladstone project site.
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Source: Queensland Government; Australian Mining; Alpha HPA; Industry Queensland; Mining Weekly
