Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners’ plan to build a “state-of-the-art” polysilicon plant in Australia has taken a step forward, with Australia’s Silica Quartz starting a drilling program at a planned mine site that would provide feedstock for the proposed facility can serve.
Australia’s Silica Quartz (ASQ) has launched an exploration drilling program at the Quartz Hill project site in Queensland, Australia, with the aim of developing a metallurgical grade silicon resource that could provide feedstock for Quinbrook’s proposed AUD 7.8 polysilicon billion ($5.22 billion). plant.
Quinbrook plans to build a polysilicon manufacturing facility near Townsville, Queensland. The company plans to use locally produced silica quartz to produce polysilicon for use in solar panels and battery technology.
The installation, explained a prescribed project by the state government earlier this year, is earmarked for Townsville’s Lansdown eco-industrial precinct. Townsville City Council has allocated Quinbrook a site in Lansdown, subject to development timelines. Quinbrook also plans to build a large-scale solar and battery storage project on land adjacent to Lansdown to power the production facility.
The proposed project has now progressed, with ASQ having commenced underground exploration work at the Quartz Hill site west of Townsville, where it hopes to develop a quartz mineral resource of at least 10 million tonnes.
ASQ said the exploration drilling program marks the start of ongoing work planned in the area under a recent project development agreement with Quinbrook subsidiary Private Energy Partners (PEP).
Under the terms of the agreement, ASQ has received AU$1 million from PEP to help fund the exploration drilling program and an exploratory survey. In return, PEP has secured the right to purchase up to 10 million tonnes of metallurgical grade silicon quartz at a 10% discount to market price to supply Quinbrook’s proposed polysilicon production facility.
ASQ said the drilling program is expected to take approximately two weeks to complete and selected samples will then be analyzed for trace geochemistry and other physical properties specific to the metallurgical applications of silica quartz lump raw materials. The company said early testing of samples from the north Queensland site after acid washing has produced results of up to 99.99% silica.
Polysilicon is a basic building block for solar panels and although Australia has an abundance of silicon in the form of quartz, it does not currently produce any polysilicon.
When announcing Quinbrook’s proposal Project Green Poly A “prescribed project”, Queensland Minister for Development and Infrastructure Grace Grace said it will create one of the first integrated polysilicon supply chains from mine to production.
“This project plans to place Townsville at the center of a new global supply chain for polysilicon wafers,” she said. “It will do everything from extracting quartz from northern Queensland and processing it into polysilicon wafers to supplying local and global manufacturers and markets. Project Green Poly will create the Queensland-based polysilicon supply chain the world needs to expand solar and battery power generation.”
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