Boost for Queensland critical minerals projects

Queensland Pacific Metals' Townsville battery materials plant and a project to retrieve cobalt from Ernest Henry mine waste are receiving multimillion-dollar boosts under a federal grant program. The Australian Government has awarded almost $50 million worth of grants to 13 projects across Australia under the the second tranche of its Critical Minerals Development Program. Queensland Pacific Metals said it would use its $5 million in grant funding to accelerate Front End Engineering Design for the TECH project. QPM will also contribute its own funding for the work program, being be undertaken by lead engineers Hatch. Evolution Mining has been granted $2.2 million to retrieve cobalt from mine waste at its Ernest Henry copper-gold operation near Cloncurry. Rounding out the Queensland projects to attract funding is a plan for solar PV grade quartz sand processing and silicon metal production facilities to start making solar cells in Townsville. High Purity Quartz has attracted $1.2 million for a pre-feasibility study for that project. Minister for Resources and Northern Australia Madeleine King said the successful projects would speed up development of Australia’s critical minerals sector and help Australia and export partners lower emissions and meet net-zero commitments by 2050. “The grants will support Australia’s new Critical Minerals Strategy, to be released shortly and which will outline how Australia can capture the significant opportunity of growing its critical minerals processing sector," she said. “Australia has remarkable potential to meet the increasing global demand for the critical minerals needed for clean energy technologies, such as electric vehicles and batteries, as the world moves to decarbonise.” Other projects to receive grants under the Critical Minerals Development Program include: Australian Energy Storage Solutions – $5.5 million for a pilot manufacturing plant for precursor cathode active material in Kwinana, Western Australia Australian Strategic Materials – $6.5 million to help mine, separate, refine and produce critical minerals in Dubbo, New South Wales IGO – $4.6 million for its integrated downstream nickel-cobalt refinery at Kwinana in Western Australia, which will produce high-value nickel-cobalt-manganese precursor cathode active material Clareville – $2 million to test and scale up its novel flotation separation additive, which can recover more critical minerals without increasing carbon emissions or environmental impacts Tungsten Metals Group – $1.2 million to produce ferrotungsten powders used to manufacture aerospace, medical, energy and defence products Magnium Australia – $6.25 million to develop a magnesium refinery pilot plant in Collie, Western Australia and commercialise CSIRO technology that extracts magnesium metal cleanly Ecograf Limited – $2.9 million towards a graphite qualification facility at Lucas Heights in New South Wales International Graphite – $4.7 million towards its mine-to-market battery graphite materials project in Western Australia Northern Minerals – $5.9 million towards the Browns Range Heavy Rare Earths Project at Halls Creek, Western Australia Tungsten Mining NL – $1 million for test work at its Mount Mulgine Tungsten Project in Western Australia

Boost for Queensland critical minerals projects

Industry Queensland

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