Brockman Engineering, in conjunction with Tank Industries, has been awarded a package of five bulk storage tanks that will form part of the new Eneabba rare earths refinery project, in Western Australia.
Upon completion, the new refinery will be Australia’s first fully integrated rare earths refinery a key component in Australia’s Critical Minerals Strategy.
In December, Iluka, the owner of Eneabba, confirmed discussions with the Australian Government had led to an increase of A$400 million to the original $1.25 billion non-recourse loan it had agreed to issue, via the Critical Minerals Facility administered by Export Finance Australia, to support the development of the A$1.7-1.8 billion refinery project.
Key features of the Eneabba refinery comprise its production of separated light and heavy rare earth oxides at a single domestic facility; brownfields location proximate to existing infrastructure, such as gas, power, water supply and raw material suppliers (avoiding the need to fund these project prerequisites); suitability for the permanent disposal of refinery waste; capability to process feedstock from both Iluka’s mines and from third parties (thereby catalysing an Australian rare earths industry); and access to Iluka’s rare earths stockpile as an important source of financial and feedstock security (mitigating risk and cost associated with building a mine and beneficiation plant).
Brockman and Tank Industries have worked very closely with Iluka and its EPCM company Fluor Australia to develop innovative process storage solutions for the plant that meet their specific technical requirements, EVZ, the owner of Brockman and Tank Industries, says.
Works are to commence immediately on the design and fabrication of the storage tanks with a scheduled mobilisation to site in the September quarter of 2025 for anticipated works completion in the first half of 2026.
