Plant tour for mining milestone

SUVO Strategic Minerals’ Pittong mining plantation had its fiftieth birthday celebrated recently.

To ring in the occasion, more than 20 stakeholders and representatives met for a tour of the site located 40 kilometres west of Ballarat on the boarder of Golden Plains and Corangamite shires.

As Australia’s only miner of hydrous kaolin, which is used to make things like ceramics, paint and pharmaceuticals, executive chairman Henk Ludik said it was an opportunity to show people what they do.

“We’ve done a lot of work here and we felt it an appropriate time to bring in investors, shareholders and interested parties to the site to showcase what we’re doing here,” he said.

“It’s ended up being a birthday party as well. We’re celebrating half a century of a tremendous resource that’s been valuable for the community.”

The event included a meeting with members of the Ballarat Region Treegrowers, who led attendees through their reforestation efforts in collaboration with Suvo.

Attendees were given a tour of the roughly 50-hectares quarry followed by the Pittong processing plant and were able to ask questions about the mining processes practice on the sites.

Mr Ludik said plans are underway to host monthly open tours following the inaugural birthday event.

He said the infrastructure in place at Pittong has been the key to its longevity.

“If it wasn’t a quality resource and quality infrastructure, we wouldn’t have been around this long,” he said.

“This is a multi-decade asset that’s basically been an asset for the community for decades, and we expect it’ll be decades more so it’s important people understand that this is theirs as well.”

Recently, the operating license for the Pittong site was extended to 2045, and plans are underway for an expansion at the location that is expected to increase production from 27,000 tonnes to 60,000 tonnes a year.