Busselton yoongarillup

The Yoongarillup Mineral Sands Project, being developed by Japanese owned, Doral Mineral Sands Pty Ltd, is located 250 kilometres south of Perth and 17 kilometres south east of Busselton, in the south west of Western Australia.

Busselton Yoongarillup Project Received EPA Approval in 2015

The Busselton Yoongarillup Project was approved to go ahead by the Western Australian Environmental Protection Authority (EPA), in mid 2015. The heavy mineral sand mining operation will entail the disturbance of almost 96 hectares of land; 8.9 hectares of native forest, situated in the Yoongarillup State Forest and about 87 hectares that is currently cleared land, used in the past for the farming of dairy and beef cattle.

Busselton Yoongarillup Mine Will use dry Open-cut Mining Technique

The infrastructure construction required to get the Yoongarillup Project up and running as soon as possible will include the building of solar evaporation ponds, ore processing plants, haulage and service roads, a laydown area, workshops, offices and later, the backfilling of pits that have been mined and the final rehabilitation and decommissioning of the disturbed areas. The mining operation is expected mine up to four million tonnes of heavy mineral sand ore that will produce 256,000 tonnes of heavy mineral concentrate, over a three year operating period. Sand mining at the Yoongarillup Project will consist of a series of open-cut pits using dry mining methods, a technique that will require the dewatering of existing groundwater.

Busselton Yoongarillup Project Being Developed by Japanese Owned Doral Mineral Sands

Doral is an unlisted public sand mining company fully owned by Iwatani Corporation of Japan. It is already in the business of producing zirconium and titanium products from its other mining activities in the Bunbury area of Western Australia, along with fused zirconium, fused alumina and silica fume at its processing facilities at Rockhampton.

Doral Mineral Sands Established in 2001

Doral Mineral Sands Pty Ltd was formed in 2001 to mine and process heavy mineral sand deposits located at Bunbury and Dardanup. It also refurbished the Picton heavy mineral sands processing plant as well as constructed a mine site wet processing plant along with required administration and support infrastructure. The Picton processing plant, that will also be used to process the heavy mineral ore mined from the Yoongarillup sand mining project, separates the various minerals using gravity methods that enables the extraction of concentrate from the sand and clay. The valuable heavy minerals are then dried and separated into their different categories by using a mix of electrostatic and magnetic techniques. The development of future ore reserves will ensure the ongoing operation of the Picton sand processing plant for many years to come.

Doral operates on a 24 hour a day basis on both its mining and processing activities. Its operations are now producing around 15,000 tonnes of zircon, 20,000 tonnes of HiTi 70 (high grade titanium), 5,000 tonnes of leucoxene and 110,000 tonnes of ilmenite a year, with most of it being exported to the USA and Asia.