Western Mining Corporation's Queensland Fertiliser Project involves the manufacture of fertiliser at Phosphate Hill near Mt Isa and its export through the Port of Townsville.

This project will not only replace significant imports of overseas fertiliser into Australia, but also provide a new export industry. It is anticipated this replacement of imported fertilisers with local product will improve Australia’s balance of payments by more than $400 million per year. The project is also an environmental winner, as part of the fertiliser production process involves making sulphuric acid from the sulphur bearing gases emitted by the Mt Isa copper smelter.

Bonacci Group designed the main filter building at Phosphate Hill and the $35 million port facilities in Townsville. The main filter building is 20 metres high, with the filter floor 10 metres above ground.

The port facilities are built on reclaimed land and include a 220 x 65 x 25 metre high fertiliser storage shed, a sulphur storage shed, conveyors and a bottom dump rail unloading pit. The pit is 9 metres deep and was constructed using a 900mm diameter secant piling system.

Townsville is subject to tropical cyclones and with the building being situated in terrain category 2, resulted in considerable design wind loads. A further constraint was the need to have a clear span of 65.6m across the width of the building, with no internal columns, to allow large 60 tonne front end loaders with 11 cubic metre buckets to manoeuvre freely within the building.

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