PLS TOMRA Contract: 22 Ore Sorters Secured for Pilgangoora

XRT Ore Sorting at Scale: How Sensor-Based Technology Is Redefining Hard-Rock Lithium Processing

Hard-rock lithium mining has always faced a fundamental tension: spodumene ore bodies are rarely homogeneous. As open-pit operations expand laterally and at depth, the proportion of barren waste material mixed with mineralised rock tends to increase, creating a dilution problem that cascades through every downstream processing stage. Managing this dilution efficiently has become one of the defining engineering challenges of large-scale lithium production, and the technology sector's response has reshaped how major operators design their processing circuits from the ground up.

Sensor-based ore sorting, once considered an auxiliary tool for niche applications, has crossed a threshold at Pilgangoora that few processing technologies ever reach: it has become core infrastructure. The PLS TOMRA contract for 22 ore sorters at Pilgangoora, covering the proposed P2000 expansion in Western Australia, is the clearest signal yet that XRT sorting is no longer a peripheral upgrade option but a foundational investment in throughput architecture at the world's largest hard-rock lithium operations.

What the PLS TOMRA Contract Actually Covers

The contract was awarded through Pilgangoora Operations Pty Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of PLS Group Limited, to TOMRA Mining. Its scope extends beyond a simple hardware purchase. The agreement covers the supply of 22 X-ray transmission (XRT) ore sorters spanning both secondary and tertiary sorting circuits, alongside project management, specialist tooling, packing, and delivery coordination.

Critically, this contract sits within PLS's pre-Final Investment Decision (FID) early works programme for P2000. Engineering and long-lead equipment procurement commenced immediately following the contract award, but full project execution remains conditional on a positive FID from the PLS board. This sequencing is deliberate: by locking in long-lead equipment before the final green light, PLS compresses the critical path between FID approval and first production from the expanded circuit.

This pre-commitment procurement strategy is a well-established risk management technique in large capital projects. It trades a degree of upfront financial exposure for a substantially shorter ramp-up window post-approval, signalling high internal confidence in the FID outcome.

P2000: The Scale Ambition Behind the Sorter Order

The P2000 designation reflects a specific output ambition: processing capacity exceeding 2 million tonnes of spodumene concentrate per year. A pre-feasibility study published in June 2024 laid out the technical and economic framework for this expansion, positioning it as an incremental scale-up of Pilgangoora's existing infrastructure rather than a greenfield development. For a deeper understanding of spodumene lithium extraction, the mineral's distinct density profile is central to why XRT technology performs so effectively at this scale.

One culturally significant element of P2000 is the naming of its proposed central processing facility. The Jimmagunya Plant takes its name from a Nyamal word meaning "spring country," a designation arrived at through direct consultation with Nyamal Traditional Owners. This reflects an approach to project development that integrates cultural heritage considerations into infrastructure naming and planning from the earliest stages.

The table below illustrates how P2000 builds on what already exists at Pilgangoora:

How XRT Ore Sorting Works Inside a Spodumene Circuit

Understanding why 22 sorters matter requires understanding what XRT technology actually does inside a lithium processing circuit. The mechanism is grounded in physics: crushed rock particles pass across a conveyor belt through an X-ray beam, and the system measures the atomic density of each individual particle in real time. This connects directly to how lithium mining works at a fundamental level, where separating value from waste efficiently determines the viability of entire operations.

Spodumene, the lithium-bearing mineral targeted at Pilgangoora, has a distinct atomic density profile compared to the quartz, feldspar, and other gangue minerals that constitute waste rock. The XRT sensor identifies this contrast at high speed and triggers an air jet to divert waste particles away from the product stream before the material ever enters the more energy-intensive downstream processing stages.

Why Two Sorting Stages Matter More Than One

The P2000 circuit deploys sorters across both secondary and tertiary stages, a design choice that carries meaningful technical implications:

• Secondary sorting targets coarser crushed fractions, removing high-volume waste material early in the circuit where reject decisions are most impactful by mass

• Tertiary sorting applies a finer-resolution pass to material that has undergone additional size reduction, catching residual dilution that coarser sorting cannot distinguish

• Running both stages in series creates a two-tier waste rejection system, improving concentrate grade consistency and reducing variability in the feed delivered to downstream flotation or dense media separation

• The redundancy inherent in a two-stage architecture also provides operational resilience: maintenance on one sorting stage does not require shutting down the entire circuit

Operating secondary and tertiary sorting in series is not simply about recovery improvement. It is about delivering a more predictable, consistent feed profile to downstream processing, which in turn reduces reagent consumption variability and improves overall plant efficiency across the entire production cycle.

The Efficiency Cascade: What Pre-Concentration Actually Delivers

One of the least-discussed aspects of ore sorting in public commentary is the compounding efficiency effect it generates downstream. When a significant proportion of barren waste is rejected before the flotation or dense media circuit, several simultaneous improvements occur:

1. Energy consumption per tonne of product decreases because the plant processes fewer total tonnes for each tonne of concentrate produced

2. Reagent consumption in flotation circuits drops proportionally, since chemical inputs scale with the volume of material processed

3. Water consumption falls in line with reduced plant throughput of gangue material

4. Tailings generation is reduced, which has both environmental and operational cost implications

5. Downstream capital utilisation improves because plant capacity is consumed by a higher proportion of mineralised material per unit of time

For downstream battery-grade lithium chemical producers, the operational benefit extends further: a more consistent spodumene concentrate grade reduces refinery variability, which is an increasingly critical requirement as lithium chemical specifications tighten across battery supply chains. Furthermore, these efficiency gains have direct implications for the broader battery raw materials market, where input consistency is becoming a key differentiator for suppliers.

Eight Years of Technical Partnership: Why Vendor History Matters at Pilgangoora

The TOMRA-PLS relationship at Pilgangoora dates to 2017, when initial ore characterisation programmes and laboratory-scale test work commenced. Over the intervening period, the partnership has passed through multiple phases:

• Pilot-scale sorting trials on representative ore samples from Pilgangoora's distinct mineralised domains

• Project development and engineering for the initial sorting circuit installation

• Equipment commissioning and operational optimisation

• Ongoing technical support delivered both on-site and through remote monitoring and diagnostics infrastructure

This depth of operational history creates a technical advantage that is difficult to quantify but straightforward to understand. TOMRA's teams have accumulated years of data on how Pilgangoora's ore responds to XRT sorting across varying grades, lithologies, and particle size fractions. That data library allows sorter calibration for the P2000 circuit to be optimised before a single new unit is physically installed, reducing the commissioning risk that typically affects new technology deployments at scale.

Albert du Preez, Senior Vice-President and Head of Mining at TOMRA Mining, has described the existing sorting circuit at Pilgangoora as having demonstrated the reliability, availability, and consistency required for high-throughput operations, with P2000 representing the continuation of a journey that began with those earliest test programmes in 2017. According to TOMRA's own reporting on the Pilgangoora operation, the plant has consistently delivered on its pre-concentration targets across multiple ore domains.

TOMRA has also described Pilgangoora as the world's largest sensor-based sorting plant, a designation that underscores how far the operation has moved from conventional lithium processing approaches and positions PLS at the frontier of large-scale XRT deployment globally. This global leadership position is further reinforced by the scale of the 22-sorter contract award, which sets a new benchmark for sensor-based sorting installations in the hard-rock lithium sector.

Sensor-Based Sorting as a Strategic Differentiator: Industry-Wide Context

The decision to anchor P2000's processing architecture around 22 XRT sorters reflects broader forces reshaping hard-rock lithium processing globally. Several converging dynamics make this technology choice increasingly rational at scale:

Grade dilution pressure: Larger open-pit footprints and deeper ore domains expose more heterogeneous ore bodies, making dynamic, particle-level waste rejection more valuable than fixed-chemistry processing approaches that assume homogeneous feed.

Capital efficiency logic: Pre-concentrating ore before it enters flotation or dense media circuits reduces the effective capital cost per tonne of product. Downstream plant capacity is a fixed investment; improving the grade of material entering that plant improves return on that capital without additional downstream spend.

ESG intensity metrics: As battery supply chains apply greater scrutiny to the environmental intensity of upstream lithium production, metrics like energy consumption per tonne of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) produced are gaining commercial relevance. Ore sorting directly improves these metrics.

Modular scalability: Unlike monolithic processing plant expansions, XRT sorter installations can be staged, expanded, or reconfigured as ore body characteristics evolve over a mine's life. This operational flexibility has capital planning advantages that are not always visible in a point-in-time feasibility study. Consequently, this modular approach is increasingly informing how analysts assess Pilbara Minerals analysis and the company's longer-term cost positioning relative to peers.

The Road to FID: What Happens Next

The award of the PLS TOMRA contract for 22 ore sorters at Pilgangoora triggers a defined sequence of pre-FID and post-FID milestones:

1. Engineering and procurement of the 22 XRT sorters and associated equipment commences immediately following contract award

2. Long-lead item delivery coordination begins in parallel, with TOMRA managing packing and logistics to protect schedule

3. Board FID remains the gatekeeping decision point for full construction and installation to proceed

4. Commissioning of the expanded sorting circuit leverages TOMRA's existing on-site infrastructure and remote support capabilities established during previous installation phases

5. Production ramp-up toward the more than 2 Mtpa spodumene concentrate target proceeds as downstream circuit integration is completed

In addition, innovations such as direct lithium extraction continue to evolve in parallel across the broader sector, however hard-rock operations like Pilgangoora demonstrate that XRT pre-concentration remains the dominant efficiency lever for spodumene-focused producers at this scale.

The commencement of engineering and procurement ahead of FID is a calculated expression of operational confidence. It reduces the post-approval critical path and, in a market where lithium processing capacity timelines are closely watched, compresses the window between FID and nameplate production in a way that could carry material commercial significance.

Disclaimer: This article contains forward-looking statements and analysis regarding the proposed P2000 expansion at Pilgangoora. The P2000 project remains subject to a positive Final Investment Decision by the PLS board and has not yet received that approval as of the time of writing. Nothing in this article constitutes financial or investment advice. Readers should conduct their own due diligence before making any investment decisions.

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