Townsville’s star is rising in the burgeoning battery supply chain sector – a fact Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has highlighted with a roll call of promising local projects during a key speech in North Queensland.

This included Vecco Group’s plans to build a $26 million vanadium electrolyte manufacturing facility in Townsville, ESI’s work on iron-flow batteries, and QEM’s partnership with Sun Metals to tap refinery waste to produce vanadium electrolyte.

At the same time, the Queensland Government announced that Queensland Pacific Metals had received Significant Investment Project status for its Townsville Energy Chemicals Hub project, set to produce cobalt and nickel battery materials at the Lansdown Eco-Industrial Precinct.

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Ms Palaszczuk was speaking at a Townsville Enterprise lunch yesterday on what the Queensland Energy and Jobs Plan means for North Queensland.

It followed the announcement that the State Government would take control of the CopperString project to deliver what she described as the biggest investment in the region ever and the greatest opportunity since John Campbell Miles’ mineral discoveries at Mount Isa.

Ms Palaszczuk highlighted Vecco’s work to build the first vanadium battery electrolyte facility in the nation, with production due to start in Townsville later this year.

“The facility will employ 21 people and produce enough electrolyte for 175 megawatt hours growing to 350 megawatt hours of storage annually,” she said.

“When Vecco’s Julia Creek vanadium mine is operational this processing facility will use Queensland vanadium.”

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She also pointed to the QEM-Sun Metals partnership as one of the next steps towards making vanadium batteries in Townsville.

Ms Palaszczuk said also that work was underway between ESI and Cleveland Bay Chemical Company in Townsville to deliver battery materials from locally sourced critical minerals.

This brought the potential for battery materials from Townsville to go into Queensland-made iron-flow batteries. 

“ESI are currently developing a battery manufacturing facility in Maryborough and are considering a second facility here in Townsville from the demand out of the Queensland Energy and Jobs Plan,” she said.

Ms Palaszczuk said a global clean energy arms race was underway, driving unprecedented demand for critical minerals that were mined sustainably and processed with renewable energy.  

“That’s why in addition to delivering CopperString we are building the nation’s first $75 million critical minerals demonstration plant in Townsville,” she said.

The Queensland Resources Common User Facility will be located at the Cleveland Bay Industrial Park in Townsville.

Initially targeting vanadium, it is intended to trial production processes for commercialisation, enabling prospective miners to begin producing mineral samples at scale.