Sandy Ridge Facility

The Sandy Ridge Project is Australia’s first dual open-cut kaolin mine and arid near-surface geological waste repository in a 70-million-year-old kaolin clay bed, on top of some of the oldest and most stable rocks on earth which formed approximately 3.7 billion years ago. The Sandy Ridge Project is located approximately 240 kilometres (km) west-north-west of Kalgoorlie.

Tellus commenced ‘Stage 1: Enabling works’ in February 2019. Tellus  completed ‘Stage 2A: Installation of the permanent village’ and ‘Stage 2B: Balance of works’ both on time and on budget. Surface storage operations commenced in October 2020 and the final approval to fully operate a commercial Class V hazardous waste facility was obtained in March 2021.

For more information on Sandy Ridge click here

For information on government recognition click here

For Sandy Ridge independent technical reviews click here

For regulatory information click here

For unique site characteristics of Sandy Ridge click here

For information on environmental management click here

Tellus has approval (subject to strict conditions) over 25 years to:

  • Mine up to 290,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) of kaolin clay
  • Receive up to 100,000 tpa of hazardous waste at the facility gate, subject to licence conditions
  • Build a 40,000-tonne kaolin clay plant (within five years). The kaolin clay can be used in environmental, plant and ceramics markets
  • An initial 25-year operating licence, but with the potential to be multi-generational with rolling approval extensions. It has the potential to be WA’s longest life project

Tellus plans to build a circular economy park at the Sandy Ridge Facility. The technologies used will be dependent on the waste received and the technical and economic viability of the waste material. The circular economy park will be subject to a separate approval process.