Super smelter

Hobart Mercury
Wednesday 30/9/2009 Page: 1

A $500 MILLION silicon smelter to make the building blocks for solar panels may be built between Wynyard and Stanley on Tasmania's North-West Coast. Tasmanian Treasurer Michael Aird and Australia's senior trade commissioner to Germany met top executives from multinational chemical giant Wacker last week in Munich to discuss the project. Under the proposal. Wacker Chemie Ag would build a silicon refinery at the Port Latta industrial site near Stanley, next to the existing Grange Resources iron magnetite pellet plant.

The plant would be the biggest silicon refinery in Australia, producing a much more sophisticated silicon metal product than the other major refinery in Western Australia. Tasmania is attractive to Wacker Chemie - one of the world's largest specialist silicon companies - because of its rich untapped reserves of high grade 99% pure silica, water for cooling, renewable energy from both wind and hydro-electric sources and natural gas to power its high-temperature furnaces.

Circular Head Council mayor Daryl Quilliam confirmed yesterday Wacker Chemie representatives had visited the region "two or three times" recently to canvass their silicon project with locals. He said council staff had met with Wacker Chemie to discuss its key needs in building a new hi-tech silicon refinery at Port Latta. "Wacker Chemie has talked with the council. Our reaction is that any development like this is very important to us and that we will do whatever we can to make sure we get this refinery project for Circular Head," Mr Quilliam said. Mr Quilliam said discussions had focused on getting the silica from the Marrawah and Arthur River area where it would be mined, to the proposed Port Latta smelter using existing road and rail options.

The proposed refinery would turn high-grade silica into pure silicon. The thin sheets of polysilicon wafers produced would be exported to be made into photovoltaic cells to supply the fast-growing demand for solar energy panels in China and Asia. Refined silicon can also be used in the liquid crystal display (LCD) screens of computers and TVs, in the manufacture of fibre-optic cables to carry high-speed broadband telecommunications and to make silicon chips that power computers.

Mr Aird, who spent $50,000 last week on a taxpayer-funded trip to Europe to talk to the Wacker Chemie board, has said the project would provide "hundreds of jobs". He refused to discuss the project yesterday, despite being asked to confirm in Parliament that his mystery "manufacturing plant" mooted for the North-West Coast was a silicon mine and refinery. He said discussions between the Government and the unnamed company were still "very sensitive", with the proponent still looking at two other locations. "There are commercial-in-confidence reasons for the company not wanting to canvass the issues at this stage," Mr Aird said.

Greens leader Nick McKim had asked Mr Aird to confirm the "open secret" that the foreign investment project was a silicon refinery. Mr McKiun demanded to know if a value adding manufacturing plant would be part of any industrial smelter. He also asked what incentives the Government was promising Wacker Chemie, if heavily discounted electricity prices were part of the package and where the timber needed in the chemical process to convert silica to silicon using charcoal was to be sourced. "This may well be a good project which Tasmanians can be proud of, but can you provide an assurance that this will not be yet another divisive proposal which will rip the Tasmanian community apart, as Gunns Limited's pulp mill has," Mr McKim asked.

Wacker Chemie wants the Tasmanian and Australia governments to provide it with incentives before it makes a final decision. Mr Aird met last week with federal Industry Minister Kim Carr in Melbourne to discuss a support package. He said federal and state assistance would focus on the provision of infrastructure such as roads, rail and port facilities, and on skills training.