Sandy Ridge’s Bulk Pilot Plant Commences Operations
News Release
- 40 ton kaolin ore pilot plant operations commence
- 10-12 tonnes of “standard” and “premium” product grades to be produced
- Results to be used in final design and securing offtake agreements
Tellus Holdings Ltd (“Tellus”) is pleased to announce the commencement of a bulk pilot scale processing of 40 tonnes of kaolinised ore from the Sandy Ridge resource, located 140 km North West of Kalgoorlie.
The kaolinised granite matrix (ore) is being processed at a pilot production plant at Nagrom Metallurgical in Perth, Western Australia. Two grades of kaolin product (15 tonnes) will be produced using a wet refining process.
A standard grade product will be aimed at the continuous filament glass-fibre markets, and a premium grade product will be produced for the high-quality tableware and paint markets. Nagrom has completed assembly and the operation of the pilot is expected to take 10 to 12 weeks.
The process flow sheet being used is similar to that used by many operating kaolin plants around the world, using blunging of the kaolin matrix into a slurry form, several stages of screening to remove quartz sand, hydro-cycloning to refine the kaolin particle size distribution, and filter-pressing and drying of the final product.
A chemical-free process was selected in order to minimize production costs and to allow sale of the products into specific tableware markets.
The pilot plant uses small scale versions of the same equipment which will be used in Tellus’ full-scale production plant. Metallurgical performance data gathered during the trial will be used in the design process for the full-scale plant at the Sandy Ridge kaolin project.
“Bulk sample processing of the Sandy Ridge kaolin in a pilot plant is a significant step forward in de-risking the project.” said Duncan van der Merwe, Tellus’ Managing Director.
“The resultant tonnes of products are an essential element in obtaining kaolin off-take sales agreements, and the metallurgical data collected to date proves the process flows sheet selection and engineering design”.
About Tellus Holdings:
Tellus Holdings Ltd is an infrastructure project development company with a proposed dual revenue business model. This involves mining the commodities salt and kaolin and backfilling the voids left from mining with equipment, archives or long term temporary storage of waste. Tellus’ business model mirrors world’s best practice solutions operating in the UK, EU, USA and Canada. Tellus is developing the Chandler salt mine project in the Northern Territory (NT) and the Sandy Ridge kaolin mine project in Western Australia. Tellus’ flagship ‘Chandler Project’ has recently been awarded “Major Project Status” by the NT Government.
For further information:
Visit: www.tellusholdings.com.au or contact:
Duncan van der Merwe
Managing Director
Tel: +61 (0)2 8257 3395
Jane Munday
(Media) Michels Warren Munday
Mob: +61 (0)427 880 083
