Agripower gears up for $70m upgrade works

Agripower Australia plans to start construction work late this year on a $70 million package of capital projects at its Charters Towers fertiliser manufacturing plant. The major elements will be a multi-user rail spur to link to the main Townsville-Mount Isa line and work to double plant capacity to 500,000 tonnes per annum of Agrisilica granules. Agripower Australia director Peter Prentice said the work was expected to stretch over 15 months and employ more than 220 people in construction. The improvements would also see Agripower add 125 jobs in Charters Towers once operational, compared to about 45 positions now. “The benefit to regional Queensland and to Charters Towers is going to be massive,” Mr Prentice said. Amorphous silica mined at Agripower’s Greenvale site is treated at the Charters Tower plant, where the present commercial-scale operations kicked off in November 2020. Mr Prentice said the company was working on restructuring financing put in place to build the existing plant and putting a working capital facility in place before kicking off the planned capital works program. “As soon as we are near finalising the current funding, which will hopefully be ready for draw down early September, we will then start commencing these capital programs and from the last quarter of this year - October onwards – we’ll start construction works,” he said. The capital program has nine elements, including the granule plant expansion and building a liquid plant to make a liquid silica fertiliser. There will be other plant add-ons to improve product delivery, such as a facility to coat Agripower’s granules with micronutrients to meet customer requests for blending. A major element of the program will be a $14 million project to build a rail siding about 1km long which will allow Agripower to rail its product direct to the Port of Townsville. Mr Prentice said discussions with Charters Towers Regional Council had highlighted the potential regional benefits of developing this as a multi-user facility. “Charters Towers lacks and onloading and offloading facility for heavy goods,” he said. The planned siding would open up opportunities for commercial users to rail and reduce trucking as well as providing an avenue to rail in much-needed bulk goods when flooding isolates the area by road. “It’s a real benefit for the whole region. Not only that, but it is going to take a lot of trucks off the road between Townsville and Charters Towers, and will offer opportunities for other parties to establish base operations in the Charters Towers region,” he said Mr Prentice said all of the planned projects were ‘shovel ready’, with opportunities for regional business including for steel supplies, electrical works and construction.

Agripower gears up for $70m upgrade works

Industry Queensland

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