1. Location and transport
     Grain-only revision  

2. Environmental approval process

3. Development timeline

4. Remaining approvals required

5. Alternatives

6. References

7. External links

Location and transport

The site for Port Spencer is located at Sheep Hill and about {{convert|20|km}} northeast of the town of Tumby Bay. The port could be served by a {{convert|27|km|adj=on}} narrow gauge branchline from Ungarra on the Eyre Peninsula Railway.^[3] Lipson Cove lies immediately to the south with the proposed wharf structure 1.5 kilometres north of Lipson Island Conservation Park.

Swaffers Road was marked to become a future haul road. Centrex Metals' preferred method for the long-term transport of ore to the port is via a slurry pipeline. A desalination plant capable of producing of 5-20 gigalitres of water per year would have been required to provide the water necessary to transport the ore in a slurry to the Port Spencer site. Once the ore is dewatered, it would be loaded onto conveyors, along a {{convert|500|m|adj=on}} jetty and onto capesize bulk carrier vessels.^[4]

An alternative development approach announced in November 2013 proposed the ore to be trans-shipped from a shorter jetty in barges, each carrying 15,000 tonnes. If such a method were to be employed, 12 barge-loads (round trips) would be required to fill a single capesize vessel, with a capacity of 180,000 tonnes.^[5]

Grain-only revision

Free Eyre's 2018 revision of the Port Spencer proposal would see grain delivered to the port site by truck, then directly loaded onto Panamax vessels via a single 600 metre-long jetty. The jetty would be supported by ten pylons, and the total cost of the development was estimated to be $130 million AUD. Project costs had been heavily optimised over several years, down from prior estimates of $300-400 million AUD.^[2]

Environmental approval process

Centrex Metals' port development proposal required three stages of environmental approvals plus associated mine development approvals before ultimately being abandoned by its original proponents.

• The South Australian Development Assessment Commission deemed it appropriate for the project to produce two stages of documentation in the form of Public Environment Reports for South Australian Government approval.^[6]
• The Federal Australian Government also deemed it necessary for Centrex Metals Ltd to obtain Federal environmental approval for Port Spencer.^[4]
• The Federal Environment Department required Centrex Metals Ltd to respond to identified risks to two threatened species known to visit the region- the southern right whale and the fairy tern.^[4]

The development of Port Spencer was also dependent on the advancement of the Fusion Magnetite Project, which required its own environmental approvals at both State and Federal levels. As of 2018, the associated mine has not been developed, and the project site is now being considered by Free Eyre, as a potential grain export facility. Such a proposal would require a restart of the environmental approvals process.

Development timeline

• 6 January 2011 - Project awarded Major Project Status by South Australian Government
• 1 June 2011 - Guidelines for Public Environment Report released
• 9 March 2012 - Stage 1 Public Environment Report released
• 15 November 2012 - Federal Environment Department determined that approval would be required
• 28 October 2013 - Federal Environment Department approved Stages 1 & 2 with conditions
• 14 December 2015 - Wugang Australian Resources Investment missed a deadline to pay {{AUD|4 million}} into the joint venture^[7]
• 14 October 2016 - the joint venture was wound up^[8]
• July 2017 - Land previously purchased for the Port Spencer project was publicly advertised for sale.^[9]

Remaining approvals required

As of 4 November 2013 Centrex Metals Ltd was yet to release its Stage 2 Public Environment Report (PER) for consideration and approval by the South Australian Government. This publication is expected to detail the company's plans to construct a reverse osmosis seawater desalination plant which will return waste brine to Spencer Gulf with elevated salinity. The brine return was considered by the federal government to be a potential risk to the fairy tern, which relies on nearby populations of bait fish in order to breed successfully. Lipson Island Conservation Park is considered to be suitable breeding habitat for the fairy tern, and historical sighting records exist for the area.^[10] If fairy terns are shown to utilise Lipson Island Conservation Park for breeding, the impact of desalination brine on distribution or abundance of available prey species could adversely impact their population.

Alternatives

Another iron ore mining company, Iron Road Ltd, has proposed a new port to be constructed at Cape Hardy,^[11] 9 km north east of the Port Spencer site.^[12] Andrew Stocks, CEO of Iron Road, has stated that only one port is likely to be built in the area.^[11] The company considered the site of the proposed Port Spencer project but deemed it unsuitable in 2010. Reflecting on the site choice in 2018, Tim Scholz told the Port Lincoln Times that they saw no business case for switching from Cape Hardy to the Port Spencer site.^[13]

References

External links

• Map
• Centrex Metals

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