Iluka to spend $60m on Narngulu expansion
Posted
Mineral sands miner Iluka will spend $60 million expanding its mid-west Western Australian operations after the Government yesterday cleared the way for the company to extend the life of its Narngulu operations.
State Parliament yesterday amended the Mineral Sands Agreement Act to allow Iluka to import heavy metal concentrate from its other mining operations in South Australia.
Iluka's Robert Porter says the company is one of the region's biggest employers and the decision will of great benefit to Geraldton.
"So it will enable us to maintain our throughput in the mid-west and essentially extend the life of the Narngulu processing facilities for at least 10 years and associated with that it'll enable us to maintain current employment levels at Geraldton," he said.
The Shire of Geraldton-Greenough's chief executive, Tony Brun, says a number of major investment decisions, made in recent days, provides confidence to the region during the global economic uncertainty.
"It goes a long way to stabilising the region, to give people confidence, to stay here, ensure that there's good money flowing through the economy," he said.
"It provides employment, it gets spent in shops, it circulates around and that should hopefully see us out pretty well over the next 12 months to two years."
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