Talison’s Greenbushes lithium mine. Credit: Ian Munro/Kalgoorlie Miner
The State Government and the owner of the Greenbushes lithium mine believe they will finally be ready to make a call on the reopening of a disused rail link in the South West in late-2024.
The Government, Talison Lithium and rail operator Arc Infrastructure on Friday confirmed a report in The West Australian that they have launched a full feasibility study into the recommissioning of the mothballed 82km line between Greenbushes and Bunbury.
Reopening of the line, closed in 2000, would allow Talison to transfer haulage of the Greenbushes mine’s growing volumes of lithium concentrate from road trains on the busy South Western Highway.
The Government, through the South West Development Commission, said on Friday that it and Talison would each allocate $3.3m to the study.
The reopening has been under consideration for at least five years, with a pre-feasibility study by the parties in 2018 suggesting that the rail haulage option for Greenbushes would be financially competitive with transporting the concentrate by road.
However, impetus for the recommissioning was lost during the pandemic, even as Talison was putting more trucks on South Western Highway, which has become an increasingly important tourism link to the region.
Talison said on Friday it had been hard at work during the past 12 months “investigating prospective models with relevant stakeholders”.
The Government said the new study, to be finished in the second half of 2024, would include “a detailed assessment of the engineering requirements to bring the railway line back into operation”.
“There will also be a substantial community impact assessment, recognising that trains have not been seen on this line for over 15 years,” it said.
The rapid and rolling expansion of Greenbushes has created road safety and congestion concerns, with 135 truck journeys a day needed to support the mine’s current production of 1.5 million tonnes of concentrate.
Under plans to increase annual output to as high as 2.1 million tonnes a year within five years, the number of truck movements would leap to 200 or more a day. Talison is ultimately targeting as much as 2.8Mt.
The increased mine traffic on the mostly one-lane highway is particularly a concern for affected communities in Balingup and Donnybrook. “Study findings will determine the cost of reinstatement of the track, level crossings and new terminal facilities in the Greenbushes and Bunbury areas, and a joint Talison Lithium/Arc Infrastructure/Government funding proposition,” the Government said.
The Greenbushes mine expansion, together with strong prices for lithium on the back of demand for battery metals from car makers, has transformed Talison into one of the State’s most profitable companies.
In 2022, it recorded a $3.2 billion profit from revenue of $5.6b, a result beaten only by recent annual profits from billionaire Gina Rinehart’s flagship Hancock Prospecting.
US group Albemarle owns 49 per cent of Greenbushes, with Perth-based IGO an indirect 24.9 per cent owner via a joint venture with Albemarle’s partner, China’s Tianqi, that also covers the Kwinana treatment plant.
The trio shared $US635m ($917m) of dividends paid in January and February for a total payout for 2022 of $2.4b.
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