Happy dirt day: Geraldton exports sands to new Singapore market

Geraldton Port has started exporting construction sand to Singapore.

Australasian Sands International director Steve Dellabona said the company had an order for 1.1 million tonnes over the next 12 months which would fill 30 or 40 ships.

He said setting up the new industry using sand mined at Walkaway, south of Geraldton, had employed more than 50 people over the past month.

“Over the year we’d probably employ 40 on a constant basis so truck drivers, loader drivers, that sort of thing.”

Construction sand is in short supply in many countries.

Mr Dellabona said the Walkaway sand, with “cubic” granules and low clay content was well suited to making concrete.

Mid West Ports chief executive Rochelle Macdonald said they were proud to have diversified the port’s exports, along with Iluka’s Eneabba minerals sands concentrate first shipped through Geraldton last month.

“We have introduced two new commodities to the port within the last month, which is just fantastic for our region,” she said.

“One of our strategies we set a year and a half ago was to diversify our trade so we’re not as impacted with global changes which we are experiencing at the moment,” she said.

Ms Macdonald said they had taken considerable trouble to safely export the mildly-radioactive material, rich in Monazite.

“We certainly worked very closely with Iluka,” she said.

“That drove the safety around the Monazite and we put in very tight controls relating to that and a lot of consultation with our team as well.”