chemical plant under consideration

Rare earths chemical plant under consideration

Tuesday, 15/09/2009

A mining company is considering South Australia and the Northern Territory as possible locations for a billion-dollar chemical plant.

Arafura Resources is planning to develop a rare earths mine on Aileron station, north of Alice Springs, in four years' time.

The company's Steve Macowski says the mined material needs to be processed at a chemical plant, which could even be set up overseas.

"What we're building is really the start of a chemical industry for the location that we choose, so it would be a major catalyst into converting that location and that district into something quite large," he says.