Australian Silica Quartz (ASQ) has launched an exploration drilling program at its Quartz Hill project site in Queensland, Australia, with the aim of establishing a metallurgical-grade silicon resource that could serve as feedstock for Quinbrook’s proposed AUD 7.8 billion ($5.22 billion) polysilicon plant.
Quinbrook plans to build a polysilicon manufacturing facility near Townsville, Queensland. The company intends is to use locally sourced silica quartz to produce polysilicon for use in solar panels, as well as battery technology.
The installation, declared a prescribed project by the state government earlier this year, is earmarked for the Lansdown eco-industrial precinct in Townsville. Townsville City Council has allocated Quinbrook a site at 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 manufacturing facility.
The proposed project has now moved forward, with ASQ starting subsurface exploration work at its Quartz Hill site west of Townsville, where it hopes to establish a quartz mineral resource of at least 10 million tons.
ASQ said the exploration drilling program marks the start of ongoing work planned in the area under a recent project development heads of agreement with Quinbrook subsidiary Private Energy Partners (PEP).
Under the terms of the deal, ASQ has received AUD 1 million from PEP to help fund the exploration drilling program and a scoping study. In return, PEP has secured the right to purchase up to 10 million tonnes of metallurgical grade silicon quartz at a 10% discount to the market price to supply Quinbrook’s proposed polysilicon manufacturing facility.
ASQ said the drilling program is expected to take about two weeks to complete and selected samples will then be analysed for trace geochemistry and other physical properties specific to the metallurgical grade silicon quartz lump feedstock applications. The company said early test work of samples from the northern Queensland site have returned results up to 99.99% silicon dioxide after acid washing.
Polysilicon is a basic building block for solar panels and while Australia has an abundance of silicon in the form of quartz, it currently does not produce any polysilicon.
When declaring Quinbrook’s proposed Project Green Poly a “prescribed project,” Queensland Development and Infrastructure Minister Grace Grace said it will create one of Australia’s first integrated mine-to-manufacturing polysilicon supply chains.
“This project plans to put Townsville at the centre of a new global supply chain for polysilicon wafers,” she said. “It will do everything from mining north Queensland quartz 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 energy generation.”
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