2025 Update
Redgum has gone thru some major upgrades and expansion to help cater for the accommodation and meals required for the many projects happening in and around Dandaragan over the next few years
Yathroo wind farm
Waddi Wind Farm
Parron Windfarm
Marri Wind Farm
Yandin Wind Farm Expansion
So here is a glimpse of the added Corral and Outback buildings
Iluka progresses key projects while navigating US tariffs
Iluka Resources delivered an increase in zircon-in-concentrate (ZIC) during the March 2025 quarter, among other operational highlights.
The rare earths producer’s overall production for the period was 131,000 tonnes (t), a slightly larger amount from the previous quarter. The total comprised 35,000t of zircon sand, 18,000t ZIC and 55,000t of synthetic rutile.
Iluka sold 116,000t of zircon/rutile/synthetic during the quarter, which included 48,000t of zircon sand (premium and standard grade), a 116 per cent increase on the prior quarter.
To date, Iluka has contracted approximately 46,000t of zircon sand sales and 32,000t of ZIC sales for the June 2025 quarter.
“The Jacinth-Ambrosia mine in South Australia produced 66,000t of heavy mineral concentrate (HMC), marginally higher than the 64,000t produced in Q4 (the December 2024 quarter),” Iluka said.
“In Western Australia, the Cataby mine produced 184,000t of HMC, up from 128,000t in Q4 with higher ore volumes treated, ore grade and recovery. HMC processed in Q1 (the March 2025 quarter) was 205,000t.
“The Narngulu mineral separation plant (in WA) processed 116,000t of HMC, a mix of Jacinth-Ambrosia and Cataby material, producing a total of 53,000t of zircon (including ZIC) and 22,000t of rutile.
“(The) SR2 (kiln) produced 55,000t of synthetic rutile, with the kiln running at full capacity.”
Exploration was also a highlight for Iluka, with the company drilling 2906m at the Cataby mining operation in WA for resource evaluation. The spend totalled $3.2 million.
With the US recently imposing tariffs on Australia, Iluka noted the “heightened uncertainty” of the recent moves.
While its titanium dioxide feedstocks, including rutile and synthetic rutile, and light and heavy magnet rare earths are exempt, Iluka said its zircon is not.
“All of Iluka’s production takes place in Australia, which is currently the subject of a 10 per cent blanket tariff for exports to the US,” Iluka said.
“Rare earths, including light (neodymium and praseodymium) and heavy (dysprosium and terbium) magnet rare earths, are exempt from the tariffs announced by the United States. However, on April 4, the Chinese Government added medium and heavy rare earths, including dysprosium and terbium, to China’s export control list.
“This means that exporters to all markets globally now need a licence and must report to the Chinese Government on where these products are going.”
Looking ahead, Iluka’s Eneabba rare earths refinery in WA is expected to conclude detailed earthworks in the first half of 2025 (H1 2025), with concrete works currently underway.
The facility will produce separated light and heavy rare earth oxides, including dysprosium and terbium. Iluka said “it will be the only material Western world producer of heavy rare earth oxides”.
Construction is also progressing at the Balranald resource development site in New South Wales, with the project on track for commissioning in H2 2025.
Iluka is expected to commence detailed engineering at the Wimmera resource development in Q2 2025, with the company currently progressing the project’s definitive feasibility study.
New 500 MW wind project gets federal environmental tick
New 500 MW wind project gets federal environmental tick in one of Australia’s richest wind regions
Plans to build a nearly 500 megawatt (MW) wind farm in the north-eastern wheatbelt region of Western Australia have cleared another hurdle after being waved through federal environmental approvals process.
The federal environment department this week gave the all-clear to Parron wind farm, determining that a full EPBC assessment is not required.
The project has also been cleared by the WA Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) and, according to its website, has secured state development approval and submitted a grid connection application with Western Power.
The 489 MW Parron wind farm is proposed for around 8 km north-west of Badgingarra, and roughly 200 km north of Perth, where it will connect to Western Australia’s main grid, the South West Integrated System (SWIS).
The plan is for up to 79 Vestas wind turbines to be installed across 8,400 hectares of agricultural land currently used for pastoral grazing and cropping – the traditional lands of the Yued People.
The project website says the wind farm has the potential to be expanded further to a capacity of up to 648 MW and could also include a battery energy storage system in the future.
The project’s developers say the site is exposed to some of the best wind capacity factors in the southern hemisphere – a resource that has been tapped by a number of other wind projects, already.
The 130 MW Badgingarra wind farm, operational since 2019, is located immediately adjacent to the proposed Parron project and regularly features in Rystad Energy’s monthly ranking of the top 10 best performing wind energy assets in Australia.
In January 2022, Badgingarra wind farm produced a stunning capacity factor of 64 per cent for the month.
Located 12 km south of Badgingarra is the Emu Downs wind farm, an 80 MW project that was built almost 20 years ago in 2006.
The EPBC referral for the Parron wind farm says developers have addressed potential impacts that the project could have on matters of national environmental significance, including Carnaby’s black cockatoo.
Atmos says it is targeting 2026 for financial close of the project and to begin construction. A community benefit fund will be developed to deliver benefits aimed at supporting regional livability in the Shire of Dandaragan and the north-eastern wheatbelt.
Elsewhere in WA, Atmos has partnered with Nomad Energy to develop a 100 MW, four hour (400 MWh) battery that will be sited near Merredin, around 300km south-east of Badgingarra.
The Merredin Big Battery was among a batch of energy storage projects last year awarded capacity payments by the WA government, as part of a significant reshaping of the state’s grid as it accelerates its transition away from coal.
Image passes milestone with first Atlas mineral sands shipment
Image Resources has shipped its first parcel of heavy mineral sands from its new Atlas project out of Western Australia’s Geraldton port. Credit: File
Image Resources has shipped its first heavy mineral concentrate (HMC) from its new Atlas project in the Dandaragan shire, 170 kilometres north of Perth, under an existing off-take agreement used for the company’s previous Boonanarring project.
Image shipped a nominal 10,000 tonnes of wet HMC from the port of Geraldton last week, just two months after it commissioned its Atlas plant.
The concentrate was sold under a continuing life-of-mine offtake agreement with Image’s long-standing offtake partner Shantou Natfort Zirconium and Titanium Co.
The company used the same off-take arrangement for HMC sales from its previous Boonanarring operation. As is customary with its past shipments, Image’s latest sale was secured by a letter of credit issued before vessel loading.
Image says about 25 per cent of the market value of the shipment was applied as a principal repayment under a US$10 million HMC off-take prepayment facility executed with Natfort in October last year.
“The first sale of product from any new development project is always a milestone worthy of recognition. For the Atlas project, completing a first shipment just two months after commencement of commissioning is truly a notable accomplishment, particularly as this shipment marks Image’s return to revenue after a 16-month hiatus.” Image Resources managing director and chief executive officer Patrick Mutz
Mutz said the company would now focus on ramping up production to nameplate capacity to deliver on its market guidance for 2025.
Image’s market guidance this year is for production of 175,000 to 195,000 dry metric tonnes HMC, sales of 165,000 to 185,000 dry metric tonnes, a cost of $340-$400 per tonne of HMC produced, and a $410-$470 all-in sustaining cost per tonne of HMC.
The all-in sustaining cost measures the total cost of producing and shipping a tonne of HMC, including all sustaining costs, mining and processing costs.
The Atlas wet concentration plant is the first to incorporate Mineral Technologies’ innovative CT1 spirals in its processing line.
Image says from a metallurgical point of view, the results of using the technology in the plant commissioning phase were in line with the project’s pilot test results.
The spirals achieved high heavy mineral recovery and produced high-quality HMC, which helped Image quickly build up its HMC inventory, leading to an early first shipment.
The company is now closely evaluating the CT1 technology over extended time intervals.
It says the spirals’ performance appears to be sensitive to tiny fibrous root matter in the Atlas feed.
Mineral Technology’s engineering team is investigating the issue to quantify the effects of debris build-up on heavy mineral recovery.
Image hopes the studies will identify solutions to reduce or eliminate the problem on recovery and/or operating efficiencies.
Image finished building the Atlas project in January and began commissioning and achieved first HMC production in February. The company plans to ramp-up production and revenue from Atlas in the current quarter.
Doug Bright Sponsored
Thu, 17 April 2025 2:43PM
Starlink WiFi Internet
Eion Musk has enabled us to have state of the art wifi – Internet here in Redgum Village Dandaragan
Yes even the tiny town of Dandaragan has access to this very effective internet service.
Every room and all locations at Redgum Village has free access to this stable internet connection via wifi. There are 15 of these ubiquity boosters ( the small white cylinders) thruout the Village for blanket coverage. Even the main dish looks small yet packs a mean punch. It self finds the best signal to 99% effectiveness.
All you do is log onto the free service and away you go surfing the net.
For now its a try and see how it goes. If to heavier downloading or streaming occurs we will have the option soon of a paid service say $15 a day for full GigaByte access
Reverse Omosis Water Treatment Plant
Redgum Village hada Reverse Omosis water treatment plant installed in early 2022.
Every room has this new treated water thru their bathrooms and all outdoor taps.
We didnt have to install this unit and we decided to simply because we wanted better tasting water and more friendly to all water related appliances.
Even the toilet has RO water 🙂
Treats the water then adds goodies back into it so it still has flavour and body – the good stuff you get from water.
With the whole Village now on treated water there is no need for disposable water bottles as all drinking water from the taps is more purer than most bottled water 🙂
Big shout out to Tom and the guys from Athena Water Service for the Installation and building the right unit to suit our water and ourrequirements to Redgm guests.
More Redgum Renovations
Redgum Village has had another Kitchen Servery Upgrade to keep up with demand and local health regulations.
Once we added this lovely big girl to the servery we wondered how the heck we got by without her !
And her colder sister 🙂
We are so blessed to be busy here at Redgum and very aware this can change in a heart beat. While the stars are shining it has given us great opportunity to upgrade Redgum Village to a standard accepted by todays expectations.
Very fortunate to have head chef Julie and kitchen hands Ellie and Nickie plus Melinda and extra staff helping with the rooms and grounds. Good ole Cheyanne is in one of those pics above.
Cannot forget young Rusty 🙂 Will do a special post just about him, hope you like a long read … he’s just such a loverly guy.
When Redgum is busy so are many other people. Many businesses local and in Perth benefit from us being busy so lets just keep doing what we are doing and hopefully more business will come this way. Then we can keep staff employed and help prop-up businesses that supply us 🙂
So grateful that Matt the Vege man doesn’t stress when our order is 2 grand one week and 200 the next or Farmer Jacks when we order 60 loaves one week and none the next then 60 again. Sometimes go in there and buy 20 milk at once and raid the bargain bin too.
Got a few looks when the spud shed in Joondalup had a bacon special, I did ask if there was a limit per person, they said no so I took 90 one kilo packets of a good brand too. The next week grabbed another 24 and another 30. Wont say what the saving was but it covered a few months of fuel. The joy of a big walk in freezer, gotta cover the 4k a moth power bill some how and the 1000 a month for the solar installation.
Fire Dandaragan
What a way to start 2021. The Dandaragan Shire was covered in fires, not in the township of Dandaragan or near Redgum Village.
The fires were fierce in the Regans Ford area and west towards Lancelin.
Cataby and north to Badgingarra didn’t escape the rage of this summers 2021 fire path.
Fortunately no lives were lost and minimal property, however many thousands of native bush hectares weren’t so lucky. Along with the wildlife that lives amongst it.
Once again main front line fire crews from around the WA state gathered in their hundreds to contain these fires.
With command posts at Gin Gin oval then up to Regans Ford they had the personnal on hand to get these fires under control.
The constant super strong constant winds ensured this battle would rage for days and into weeks.
A phone call from fire emergency staff requesting accommodation for a fire crew at Redgum Village went from a group of 6 to a total of 55 between day and night shift.
Rooms were available at a moments notice and when there was a mix up on food for one crew onsite Redgum organised a full hot breakfast within 30 minutes of the call.
The guys and ladies were all fed and off to bed at 8.30am ready for the next shift at 4pm
Like any major emergency of this nature there will always be a mix up or a crew left out and that is what we are prepared for here and only need a phone call and your request gets answered without question without drama, it is done.
Have you got your fire plan in action?
People come first especially in emergency cases.
The thanks we received from both the fire fighters and the organising lady from comms makes doing what needs to be done on the spot super rewarding. Yet it cost us nothing extra to do, we are here anyway and food-accommodation is what we do. Cannot understand why they thought we did something special for them. Can only imagine what they must go through when they cannot get simple basic service under emergency situations in some areas they work in.
Big thankyou to our front line fire fighters once again for saving lives, protecting property and minimising bush and wildlife damage.
Slaughter Joins Harvest Road Team
Paul Slaughter has been announced as Harvest Road Group’s new chief executive officer.
The appointment of a new chief executive officer (CEO) has signalled a new phase of domestic and international growth for Harvest Road Group.
So far 2020 has been a big year for Harvest Road investment wise, purchasing its first cattle station in the Kimberley and two properties at Hill River, launching its new aquaculture brand Leeuwin Coast, which includes Akoya oysters and mussels in the Albany region, along with continuing to establish its major Koojan feedlot and processing facility, near Moora.
Harvest Road is WA’s largest beef processor which is locally owned by rich listers Andrew and Nicola Forrest.
Paul Slaughter will steer the company through this next stage of growth, replacing the inaugural CEO Greg Harvey who stepped down from the role a few weeks ago.
With 25 years’ of experience in the food services, wholesale and retail sectors, as CEO for Mrs Mac’s Australia and New Zealand, Tattarang (the parent company of Harvest Road) chief investment officer John Hartman said Mr Slaughter expertise would deliver growth and brand development across local and emerging markets.
“Our investment in Harvest Road has created world-class integrated supply chain capabilities and export growth into 40 markets,” Mr Hartman said.
“We look forward to working with Paul to seize further opportunities to share the best of our local produce with the rest of the world.”
Mr Slaughter said it was a privilege to join the group.
“It is a great opportunity to build on its incredible legacy and commitment to showcasing Western Australia’s exceptional produce to the rest of the country and the world,” Mr Slaughter said.
“We have an opportunity now to expand Harvest Road’s place at the heart of WA’s growing international food reputation.”
It’s been six-and-a-half years since the Forrest family purchased Harvey Beef and Mr Hartman said there were three key industry challenges the group faced at the time and has been working through.
“WA needed a modern, efficient processing business and we needed to invest into Harvey Beef to make sure that happened,” he said.
“Farmers needed an efficient processor to maximise the value of their cattle to access both the domestic and export markets.
“That led to us improving the management at Harvey Beef and investing a significant amount of capital into the processing facilities.”
Seasonality of the cattle supply chain has been another challenge, which Mr Hartman said the Koojan facility would help to address.
He said the facility would also benefit the WA beef industry in “providing another avenue for producers to send their cattle to, while also creating a new source of domestic demand for WA grain”.
Koojan is set to accommodate 40,000 cattle at any one time in the first phase, which Mr Hartman said was expected to commence in July 2021 and WA Governor Kim Beazley visited the facility last week to see its progress.
Once operational, Koojan will be WA’s largest feedlot, reportedly worth about $51.9 million.
Koojan’s manager is Sean McGee, who is highly regarded in the Australian cattle industry, having previously been the feedlot manager of Rangers Valley, near New England, New South Wales.
Mr McGee has been working on the site for some time, as it is currently being utilised as a cattle depot for Harvest Road’s station cattle.
Addressing sales channels, marketing strategies and value adding was a third area that Harvest Road has been targeting since it acquired Harvey Beef and Mr Hartman said Mr Slaughter’s appointment would be key in this area.
“While we will always keep trying to improve efficiency at Harvey Beef and keep seeking to optimise the cattle supply chain, I see so much opportunity to optimise the sales channels for our products – beef or aquaculture – and also to make sure that we’re telling the strong story about the WA provenance, both domestically and internationally,” Mr Hartman said.
Harvest Road’s beef is about a 50:50 split between domestic and export markets, with its export products being chilled and frozen meat only, no live cattle.
Looking at the growth of Harvest Road’s beef business in the past six years, Mr Hartman sees the company’s venture into aquaculture taking a similar business direction.
“We have grown the beef business very strongly in the past six years and in the past 18 months, the growth that we are now seeing in aquaculture I see in a similar way to where we were for Harvest Road beef six years ago,” he said.
“We are at the start of something very exciting on our aquaculture journey.”
While Tattarang and Harvest Road has been an active buyer so far this year, Mr Hartman said the company was not actively looking to purchase more land in the near future, however “we are always on the lookout for a good deal”.
“Whilst we continue to keep an eye out, we are not actively pursuing any additional opportunities at the moment,” he said.
The group also has no plans to venture into grain production or acquire cropping properties to supply its own feed.
“We look forward to creating some great relationships with grain producers to help supply the Koojan facility,” Mr Hartman said.
Including utilising accommodation in Dandaragan
The future of the agricultural industry looks very positive, according to Mr Hartman, as he sees demand for Harvest Road’s agri-food products to continue into the long-term future.
“We think people are going to become more aware of where their food is being produced and how it’s being produced and we are seeking to lead the charge when it comes to traceability and sustainability in production,” he said.
Mr Hartman said the company viewed animal welfare as a priority as it was a major factor looked upon by its consumers, coupled with sustainability.
“We are very conscious of sustainability in all parts of the operation – whether that’s greenhouse gas emissions, water usage etc,” Mr Hartman said.
“The way that our agricultural products are produced and the desire for transparency from consumers in how they are produced is a dynamic that will continue to increase.
“For us, that is at the forefront of our mind – in the investments we make and the businesses that we operate and how they operate.”
Harvest Road’s sustainability commitment is evident through its research that is occurring over the next 18 months to map carbon emissions across its entire supply chain, with a covered anaerobic lagoon underway at its Harvey Beef site in the South West.
Harvest Road has also made an investment into the business FutureFeed, a livestock feed supplement which utilises a specific type of seaweed to increase production while simultaneously reducing methane emissions.
Redgum Village Renovation Update
Redgum Village has had a massive upgrade
Over the last 6 months Redgum has en-suited every room to keep up with expectations for mine camp style accommodation.
The kitchen also has more modern appliances including a new combie oven (this certainly made our cook very happy)
Added store room with added walk-in freezer, with two we can keep all meat separate to other frozen items.
The serving area has been re arranged and all dining is in the 40 seat area where we tried out the Redgum Restaurant.
Dandaragan does not need a Restaurant so is now a lovely country barn theme Dining area for all onsite guests.
Many veranda’s have been upgraded and social gathering areas added to keep gatherings smaller and more of them
Around 200 trees and shrubs have been planted, more blue metal on driveways and parking, more truck parking areas and up the back a big clean up, tidy up, re skin of buildings, tree line on boundary, vertical garden in between buildings, clothes line area and chill out area to soak up the setting sun 🙂
Let the pics do the talking ….
Attention Contractors
Wind Farms In The Dandaragan Region
Emu Downs – Waddi – Yandin- Warradarge – Parron – Marri – Yathroo and others
Personalised Accommodation and Meals Packages
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L.A.F.A style accommodation very limited availability
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