Queensland Resources Common User Facility

The Queensland Government is delivering common user infrastructure at the Cleveland Bay Industrial Park in Townsville to support the development, extraction and production of critical minerals.

The Queensland Resources Common User Facility will be located at the Cleveland Bay Industrial Park in Townsville. The facility will be a hub to trial production processes for commercialisation, enabling prospective miners to begin producing mineral samples at scale.

The aim is to accelerate the development of commercial mining projects, promote investment in advanced mineral manufacturing opportunities and enable development of supply chain and supporting industries in Queensland.

The facility will be able to:

• pilot production processes and research intermediate / end products
• train staff on equipment, processes and handling hazardous materials
• produce samples for customers
• assess potential by-products, waste streams and recyclable materials
• demonstrate processes at scale to validate commerciality and technical viability to secure finance, investor interest, off-take agreements and partnerships

The initial focus will be on vanadium. Vanadium has many uses, including to create a reliable and safe renewable energy storage solution which can be used in large-scale batteries around the world. Several mining companies in Queensland are seeking to develop critical minerals projects like the vanadium projects in the Julia Creek and Richmond regions.

The State has been working in collaboration with potential future customers of the facility to identify the base equipment required, develop a base design, and determine how the facility will be owned and operated.

The state-owned mineral processing facility is intended to be operational for vanadium processing in 2025, with capacity to expand over time to encompass processing other critical minerals like cobalt and rare earth elements.

Queensland company Sedgman, a member of the CIMIC Group, has been appointed as the Managing Contractor to lead the detailed design and delivery of Queensland Resources Common User Facility.

The Queensland Resources Common User Facility is a key action under the Queensland Resources Industry Development Plan, aligns with the $315 million Queensland Critical Minerals Strategy, and supports the delivery of the $62 billion Queensland Energy and Jobs Plan and the transformation of Queensland’s energy system to deliver clean, reliable and affordable energy to provide power for generations.

We welcome interest from the private sector in the future use of the facility. Please contact QRCUF@treasury.qld.gov.au for further information.