Chatham makes the next step towards production

Korella Fertilizers is taking a big step to market with preparation of an application to develop its phosphate processing and distribution hub at the site of an old quarry in Cloncurry. Korella is owned by New Zealand based company Chatham Rock Phosphate Limited. What they’re calling the ‘Round Oak Road Hub’ was once a pit mined for ballast in an extension of the Great Northern Railway. The Chatham Rock Phosphate Limited team at Korella North. Left to right: Korella Fertilisers Executive Director Colin Randall; Chief Geologist Garry Edser , Field Manager Maurice March Korella will lodge a development application with the Cloncurry Shire Council to develop the facility to process the phosphate and then protect it from the weather once it has been crushed, screened and made ready for transport. The company plans to distribute its direct application phosphate from its Korella North mine mainly to agricultural areas with acid soils in eastern Australia by road. At the same time looking to supply fertilizer manufacturers in both in Australia and New Zealand with crushed phosphate which is to be railed to the Port of Townsville for shiploading. The quarry area which, sits just to the east of the town near the rail line, complements Cloncurry’s well-established logistics credentials, said Korelal Fertilisers Executive Director Colin Randall. “And with something like a hundred trucks a day going through Cloncurry empty, having gone in one or other direction, we aim to take advantage of this,” Mr Randall said. Capped drill hole on the Korella North lease. The company expects further drilling to lead to JORC resource and conversion to a Mining Lease. “We've estimated already that there's at least 300,000 tons a year of unused trucking capacity that currently runs through Cloncurry and that's a pretty extraordinary number and so we are pretty sure that quite a few people would be interested in back loading since it's on dedicated road train route. “I'd like to have a thousand customers, so this is probably quite different than other mining companies who want single big contracts. “Our benefit will be to have diversity in market. So that's a, that's a simple way of putting the market, but obviously that's more complicated than just having single customers.” In preparation for the Development Application the first environmental surveys on the quarry site have been carried out by C & R Consulting of Townsville. The Korella North Mine project is located around 150km southeast of Mount Isa and adjoins the Phosphate Hill Mine owned and operated by Incitec Pivot. Korealla Fertilizers is one of Chatham’s package of four subsidiary companies which also include Korella MCP, Pacific Rare Earths and a new company called Organoselenium. Korella tenements including Korella North Korella MCP will base its mono calcium phosphate (MCP) plant in Cloncurry to take advantage of the access to phosphate and local limestone. The other ingredient of MCP manufacture is sulphuric acid and the company is on the search for supply. Related: Proposed Cloncurry phosphate plant looks for acid supply With the chronic shortage of acid in the North West the Company is planning on producing the acid itself making MCP production in Cloncurry reliable and providing a resilient MCP supply chain for cattle lick producers and consumers. Pacific Rare Earths is focused on methods of extraction of the 15 rare earth metals out of 17 present in the phosphate to be mined at Korella. Rare earths are considered critical minerals and contribute to the development of renewable power generation infrastructure, among others. The company has selenium prospects at Hughenden and also at Tambo in central west Queensland. Through its new company Organoselenium it looks to produce selenium that is used in fertilizers and feed supplements for livestock. The Korella North mine project covers around 8600 ha of grazing land on Chatsworth Station. The company is aiming to produce 100,000t in the first year of production to increase to 250,000t in subsequent years said Mr Randall.

Chatham makes the next step towards production

Industry Queensland

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