Latrobe nears practical completion of Stage 1 magnesium oxide demonstration plant
Latrobe Magnesium’s (ASX: LMG) Stage 1 demonstration plant project in Victoria is nearing practical completion, with no reportable health, safety or environmental incidents to date.
The company reported that 154 out of a total of 180 construction punch list items had been completed and signed off since mid-May.
Over the coming weeks, a dedicated construction team will be working through the remaining 26 items including labelling of valves, instrumentation and piping, final epoxy painting and coating and spray roaster insulation works.
Official handover
Some of the items still to be completed were identified during a commissioning trial that started in April to produce the world’s first batch of environmentally-sustainable magnesium oxide from fly ash, a waste resource from brown coal power generation.
These included modifications to minor equipment, installation of additional instrumentation, completion of access structures, dismantling of scaffolding and other post-trial equipment replacements.
Latrobe stated that practical completion would be followed by an official handover to operations personnel, at which point the demonstration plant will move into continuous operations at a production rate equivalent to 1,000 tonnes per annum of magnesium.
The unfinished construction has been paused to allow Latrobe’s project team to update and finalise a strategy, schedule and budget to ensure optimal resource allocation and project efficiency.
Meanwhile, the company is continuing to plan workstreams for a Stage 2 commercial plant to produce 10,000 tpa of magnesium oxide.
Several funding options are being considered, including a combination of a partial sale of site land and the sale and leaseback of the demonstration plant site to raise up to $15 million.
Product purity
Latrobe reported that the magnesium oxide produced during the commissioning trial had a purity of over 80%.
This was in line with expectations despite the spray roaster processing an understrength magnesium solution.
The results have given the company confidence that the spray roaster will be able to achieve an even higher quality product in its operational phase.
Magnesium oxide production from the demonstration plant will be sold under an agreement to Western Australia-based specialist company Rainstorm Dust Control.
Extraction and sale
Latrobe intends to extract and sell magnesium metal and cementitious material from industrial fly ash, currently a waste resource from the Yallourn power station.
The 1,480-megawatt brown coal plant is slated for closure in mid-2028.
Latrobe has an agreement with Yallourn to supply its demonstration plant with industrial fly ash.
The company believes there will be enough ash produced over the next four years to supply feedstock to the commercial plant for two decades.