Venture Minerals' Mount Lindsay Tungsten, Tin Mining Plan Facing Controversy

Venture Minerals' Mount Lindsay tungsten, tin mining plans face strong protests from environmentalists. Protesters have voiced strong opposition to the controversial West Coast mining project, which is scheduled for its first production in late 2024.

The environmentalist Bob Brown Foundation (BBF) said: "Twenty-five protesters have walked onto the site of Venture Minerals' proposed Mount Lindsay tin and tungsten mine in the Tacon region." BBF said, "The runners continued their epic adventure into Mount Lindsay today after a 62km ultra-marathon over the weekend."

BBF campaign organizer Lisa Searle said Federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley should "put a stop to this destruction" and reject Venture's plan.

The project, located near Tullah, is expected to involve about 200 jobs during construction and about 120 jobs during operation. The venture capital firm defended its plans, including on environmental grounds. The company said, "We recognize that we are located in an area that has environmental sensitivity and value."

As a result, Venture Minerals has made considerable changes to its proposed operation. First, the company has moved from the proposed open-pit mine to an underground mine.

In addition, the company has reduced the need for tailings dams and rock storage, seeking to reinject tailings in paste form and backfill mine voids, all of which has reduced the mine footprint by approximately 80%. While a small portion of the land will be cleared for operations, the vegetation will grow back after construction.

The company, which trusts its mining and remediation technology, says tin is critical to the electric vehicle revolution, which is important for reducing global greenhouse gas emissions.

Venture has recently submitted documents to the federal Environment Department and the project is expected to be evaluated under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.

The venture capital firm's filing says the mine is expected to operate for about eight years from the last quarter of 2024. Construction is expected to take one year. The site primarily involves rainforest, and Venture forecasts that about 77.2 hectares will be disturbed.

The proposed mine will produce tin, tungsten and magnetite concentrates and will operate on a daily basis. The project will involve underground mines, crushing and processing plants, mine offices, contractor workshops and laydown areas, temporary rock storage and tailings storage facilities, stockpile areas, access networks, water storage, and piping and drainage systems.

Venture said the ore will be processed on site and exported from Burnie or Port Latta, with magnetite likely to be trucked to Grange Resources Limited's Port Latta plant for processing. Venture Minerals is striving to discover and development of world class mineral deposits and the company has very successfully transitioned from explorer to producer.

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