Latrobe Magnesium (ASX:LMG) has commenced production of magnesium oxide at the Hazelwood North Demonstration Plant in Victoria, after completing operational start-up of the plant.
The plant received over 200 tonnes of ash in the past two weeks, ensuring sufficient stock for start-up and continuous operations.
The company’s mining partner continues to screen and stockpile ash for transport, with deliveries ongoing in compliance with the Environment Protection Authority Victoria’s waste tracker procedures and conditions.
Latrobe Magnesium, which has a market capitalisation of $60.6 million, is continuing to build knowledge of the process involved as we progress towards 1,000 tonnes per year steady-state operations.
Scheduled maintenance pauses have been conducted throughout the start-up process. These pauses are being used as opportunities to train the operations team, improve practices to enable faster recovery from possible breakdowns, and implement preventative maintenance measures ahead of building production capacity.
In addition, the plant has produced by-products from brown coal ash, including char, silica, iron oxide, and agricultural lime. Given the availability of these by-products at production scale, Latrobe will now begin validation trials with multiple interested parties to progress long-term offtake agreements.
Latrobe Magnesium is focused on developing a magnesium metal plant in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley using its world-first patented extraction process. The company plans to extract and sell magnesium metal and cementitious material from industrial ash.
Write to Aaliyah Rogan at Mining.com.au
Images: Latrobe Magnesium
