Cristal Australia Completes Expansion on Brokenhill Mineral Separation Plant

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Perth, Australia)--Cristal Australia Pty Limited (formerly Beemax Resources) completed its mineral separation plant expansion project in Brokenhill, New South Wales, commencing production in April 2013. The expansion has increased the processing capacity from the initial 450,000 tons per year to an estimated 750,000 tons per year, including a new 40-ton-per-hour ilmenite magnetic separation circuit.

Construction on the expansion began in July 2012. Cristal Australia Pty Limited is a subsidiary of the privately owned National Titanium Dioxide Company Limited (Jeddah, Saudi Arabia).

The plant has a wet gravity circuit and a leucoxene circuit that is able to process leucoxene and ilmenite, as well as the non-magnetic products of rutile and zircon. The plant is being supplied with mineral sand concentrate from the Ginkgo mine, which is about 67 kilometres from Brokenhill, via road haulage.

Design engineering firm Parsons Brinckerhoff provided the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) services for the expansion. Brokenhill awarded the structural, mechanical and piping contract, including electrical installation, to the local engineering and construction company Bobos Engineering.

Cristal Australia is also developing the Crayfish mineral sand and processing plant project in Pooncarie, New South Wales. The mine had been operational, but the company decided to delay the decision on the construction of the processing plant due to the current slump in the mineral sand prices. The concentrate from Crayfish will be transported to the Brokenhill plant by road haulage until a decision is made on the Crayfish processing plant.

When the Ginkgo mine began production in 2006 in the Murray Basin, it was the first commercial mineral sand mine; it was followed by the company's second mine, Snapper, located 10 kilometres away. The Murray Basin area in New South Wales has the world-class titanium and zircon resources. Cristal's project development manager Joe Bannister said that "the decision to go ahead with the mineral separation plant at the Crayfish mine will be taken depending upon the market price for the mineral sand."

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