Win for King Island mine
Local jobs in minerals projects
THE reopening of King Island’s scheelite mine will create jobs and deliver important new export markets for Tasmanian minerals, the state government says.
Announcing a $10m, 10year loan to the project’s backers, state Growth Minister Michael Ferguson said reopening the Dolphin mine would create 90 local jobs during construction and 55 ongoing positions.
“We know that this is a game-changing moment. It sets a pathway for reopening that mine and, importantly, creating jobs on King Island and growing its economy.
“These are jobs in regional and remote parts of Tasmania, and a major economic boost for the King Island community.”
King Island Scheelite general manager Chas Murcott said the mine represented a significant opportunity.
“The Dolphin mine at Grassy is one of the world’s richest deposits of tungsten and only half the ore was extracted from 1917 to 1990 before the mind was closed and rehabilitated because of low commodity prices.” he said.
“The redevelopment of the Dolphin mine will have really important benefits for King Island and Tasmania. Some 3300 tonnes of concentrate will be produced per year with a value of $65m over a 14-year mine life — with the opportunity to extend that.”
Mr Murcott said tungsten was a mineral of great strategic importance for hardening steel, in aeronautical, automotive, manufacturing, medical electronics, armaments
and chemical industry applications.
“It’s an 18-month construction period for the processing plant and all the facilities around the opencut mine,” he said.
“We’ve planned it as an owner-operator operation and we want to employ as many local people from King Island as we can.
“There will be some specialists that will need to come in … but we’re not fly-in flyout.
“We want to employ locals
from King Island as a priority, and from NorthWest Tasmania.”
Resources Minister Guy Barnett welcomed the announcement.
“It’s a major vote of confidence in the mining and mineral processing sector,” he said.
As a result of the news, King Island Scheelite shares traded as high as 15c on the Australian Stock Exchange on Tuesday, up from 13c at Monday’s close.