Industry Queensland interviews CRP executive director Colin Randall

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Chatham Rock Phosphate has brought Golding Contractors onboard as it works to bring its Korella North rock phosphate mine online.

The contract will see Golding provide mining services to facilitate the granting of a mining lease at Korella North and statutory services in the exploration of Korella South.

Chatham, through its Australian company Korella Fertilisers, is advancing the Korella North, Korella Central and Korella South phosphate projects adjacent to the major Phosphate Hill mining operation in North-West Queensland.

"Our basic principle is to appoint major contractors who can help us bring our projects to fruition," Korella Fertilisers executive director Colin Randall said. "(This means) a mining contractor who can not only help with providing statutory persons in our exploration but can also help us prepare the mining plans. They have all the support facilities and supporting staff that would be extremely difficult to recruit ourselves under the current circumstances."

Mr Randall said Golding was among most experienced phosphate mining contractors in Australia, having operated the Phosphate Hill mine - where they recently renewed a contract for the next five years. He said the company would be making an announcement on a transport/logistics contractor for the Korella projects in the near future and a crushing contractor further down the track. In addition to the mine sites, Korella Fertilisers aims to establish a distribution hub and a monocalcium phosphate (MCP) manufacturing plant in Cloncurry to service its rural customer base.

The company is also working on plans for a 2Mtpa bulk phosphate rail loading facility at Korella North and a bulk loading facility at Port of Townsville. This supports its longer-term aims for a bulk phosphate distribution and export operation. Korella North phosphate would initially be transported to Cloncurry for distribution to domestic customers. The soft rock phosphate (about 13-14 per cent phosphorus) can be directly applied to improve acidic soils, with a market in sugar cane and banana cultivation, for example. "Not only is it high in phosphorus, it's low in cadmium and also has good available silica. So those are the other parameters that will make it attractive," Mr Randall said.

The initial mining contract is expected to cover production of 100,000 tonnes of phosphate rock in the first year and 250,000tpa in subsequent years. Mr Randall said a backlog in the applications system meant Chatham wasn't expecting to receive its exploration approval for Korella North until mid-2023. But he expected this would be quickly converted to a mining lease and first production should meet the fertiliser buying period of April/May 2024.