Greenbushes tantalum

The Greenbushes Tantalum mine is located 250 kilometres south of Perth in south west Western Australia. The deposit at Greenbushes, that contains one of the largest hard rock tantalum resources in the world, is owned by Global Advanced Metals Pty Ltd.

Greenbushes Tantalum Mine Able to Produce one Million Pounds of Tantalum Pentoxide Annually

Tantalum hard rock mining at Greenbushes has been carried out over the years by using both open cut and underground mining methods to mine tin, tantalum and lithium. The Greenbushes tantalum mine has its own crusher along with its own primary and secondary processing plants. The processing plants have a capacity to produce up to one million pounds of tantalum pentoxide a year. The tantalum pentoxide produced at the Greenbushes plant is exported through the Fremantle port which is the only dedicated container terminal in Western Australia.

Greenbushes Tantalum Used in Capacitors Built into Computers and Mobile Phones

The tantalum, a rare metal with unique properties, that is produced at the Greenbushes Tantalum Project, is mostly used in capacitors built into computers,video game consoles and mobile phones, as it has a melting point of 2996 degrees Celsius which makes it an exemplary thermal conductor.

Greenbushes Tantalum Mining is Poised to Have a Prosperous Future

Mining at Greenbushes has been rather up and down in recent years which has resulted in the mine taking on various owners. Most of the change of ownership that has occurred since 1990 has seen Greenbushes Tin merge to form Gwalia Consolidated Limited, however, this new entity was only to last for eight years, when, in 1998, Gwalia Consolidated merged with Sons of Gwalia. In 2001 a substantial expansion was carried out at the mine by Sons of Gwalia which resulted in the underground mine opening. However, the good fortune was not to last as the mine was placed on care and maintenance by Sons of Gwalia in 2003. In 2011 the company was split in two with Talison Lithium Australia taking over lithium mining and Global Advanced Metals taking over tin and tantalum mining.

At the time of the splitting up of the two companies Global Advanced Mining Pty Ltd owned three major assets, these being the concentrating and processing plants at Greenbushes as well as the Greenbushes tantalum mine and the Wodgina tantalum mine in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. The combined operations made Global Advanced Metals one of the largest tantalum resource companies in the world.

In 2011 Global Advanced Metals also acquired the American based, Cabot Supermetals, a company that turns tantalum ore and concentrate into different grades of capacitor powders and various metallurgical products. This acquisition made Global Advanced Metals the sole vertically integrated tantalum company in the world with both mining and processing facilities, a feature that gave the company the ability to provide a stable and long term supply of products.

In 2011 Traxys Tantalum LP, a subsidiary company belonging to the Traxys Group acquired 20 percent interest in Global Advanced Minerals.