Yabulu is a town and coastal suburb in the

City of Townsville The City of Townsville is a local government area (LGA) located in North Queensland, Australia. It encompasses the city of Townsville, together with the surrounding rural areas, to the south are the communities of Alligator Creek, Woodstock an ...

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , establishe ...

, Australia. In the , Yabulu had a population of 697 people.

Geography

Yabulu is approximately north of

Townsville Townsville is a city on the north-eastern coast of Queensland, Australia. With a population of 180,820 as of June 2018, it is the largest settlement in North Queensland; it is unofficially considered its capital. Estimated resident population, 3 ...

, Australia. The

Bruce Highway The Bruce Highway is a major highway in Queensland, Australia. Commencing in the state capital, Brisbane, it passes through areas close to the eastern coast on its way to Cairns in Far North Queensland. The route is part of the Australian Nat ...

passes through the suburb which fronts Halifax Bay. Yabulu is the site of a major

nickel Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive but large pieces are slow ...

and

cobalt Cobalt is a chemical element with the symbol Co and atomic number 27. As with nickel, cobalt is found in the Earth's crust only in a chemically combined form, save for small deposits found in alloys of natural meteoric iron. The free element, p ...

refinery, owned by

Clive Palmer Clive Frederick Palmer (born 26 March 1954) is an Australian businessman and politician. He has iron ore, nickel, and coal holdings. Palmer owns many businesses such as Mineralogy, Waratah Coal, Queensland Nickel at Townsville, the Palmer C ...

. Cobarra is a neighbourhood () near the nickel refinery. Mount Saunders is in the centre of the locality () and is above sea level. There are two railway lines passing through the locality, the North Coast railway line and the now-closed

Greenvale railway line Greenvale railway line is in northern Queensland, Australia. It carries nickel ore from a mine in Greenvale to the Queensland Nickel's refinery in Yabulu, approximately north of Townsville Townsville is a city on the north-eastern coast of ...

. The locality has the following railway stations on the North Coast line * Purono railway station () * Yabulu railway station() and one at the nickel refinery from which processed ore was carried to the

Port of Townsville Port of Townsville is a government-owned Corporation and seaport in Townsville, Queensland, Australia. It is the third largest seaport in Queensland after Port of Brisbane and the Port of Gladstone. It is located south of the mouth of Ross Cre ...

via the North Coast line *Cobarra railway station ()

History

Yabulu is situated in the traditional

Wulgurukaba The Manbarra, otherwise known as the Wulgurukaba, are Aboriginal Australian people, and the traditional custodians of the Palm Islands, Magnetic Island, and an area of mainland Queensland to the west of Townsville. The Manbarra people were forci ...

Aboriginal country, nearby Nyawigi Aboriginal country. The town takes its name from Yabulu railway station. ''Yabulu'' is an Aboriginal word meaning ''grass''.

Nickel Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive but large pieces are slow ...

laterite mining at Greenvale led to the building of the

to transport ore to a nickel refinery at Yabulu in the 1970s. In the , Yabulu had a population of 697 people. CC-BY icon

Material was copied from this source, which is available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License 78.1% of people were born in Australia and 86.4% of people spoke only English at home. The most common responses for religion were Catholic 25.1%, No Religion 24.4% and Anglican 19.2%.

Palmer Nickel and Cobalt Refinery

The Palmer Nickel and Cobalt Refinery is operated by

Queensland Nickel Queensland Nickel is a company owned by businessman and former politician Clive Palmer. Queensland Nickel owns and operates the Palmer Nickel and Cobalt Refinery at Yabulu in North Queensland, Australia. The refinery was established in July 1971 ...

, wholly owned by

. The Yabulu refinery became operational in 1974 after completion of the Greenvale to Yabulu railway line. Mining at Greenvale took place between 1974 and 1992 during which nickel laterite ore was transported to the Yabulu refinery by rail and processed up until 1993. Importation of ore from mines in New Caledonia,

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

, and the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

began in 1986 and continues to this day. In 2009, Palmer bought Queensland Nickel and the Palmer Nickel and Cobalt Refinery. The following year, the company increased production by 30%, prompting him to give $10 million worth of Christmas bonuses to staff, including 55

Mercedes-Benz B-Class The Mercedes-Benz B-Class is a subcompact executive car manufactured and marketed by Mercedes-Benz since 2005. Based on the A-Class with larger dimensions, the European New Car Assessment Programme ( Euro NCAP) classifies it as a small MPV. As ...

cars and overseas holidays. Up to 750 people worked at the refinery, which produced of

and of

per year. According to the general manager Trefor Flood this figure had risen to of nickel per month by early 2010.

World Wide Fund for Nature The World Wide Fund for Nature Inc. (WWF) is an international non-governmental organization founded in 1961 that works in the field of wilderness preservation and the reduction of human impact on the environment. It was formerly named the Wor ...

Australia (WWF) raised concerns that a

tailings dam A tailings dam is typically an earth-fill embankment dam used to store byproducts of mining operations after separating the ore from the gangue. Tailings can be liquid, solid, or a slurry of fine particles, and are usually highly toxic and po ...

at the site could collapse during the

wet season The wet season (sometimes called the Rainy season) is the time of year when most of a region's average annual rainfall occurs. It is the time of year where the majority of a country's or region's annual precipitation occurs. Generally, the sea ...

, posing an environmental threat to the

Great Barrier Reef The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral reef system composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for over over an area of approximately . The reef is located in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland, ...

. WWF later retracted their comments, apologised and were forced to pay legal costs incurred by Palmer who sued WWF because of the comments. On 15 January 2016 the company terminated 237 workers. Palmer blamed poor nickel prices, at a 12-year low, and the refusal of the Queensland government to guarantee a loan of , but the ABC reported that Queensland Nickel had donated over $6 million to the

Palmer United Party The United Australia Party (UAP), formerly known as Clive Palmer's United Australia Party and the Palmer United Party (PUP), is a currently deregistered Australian political party formed by mining magnate Clive Palmer in April 2013. The party ...

. The leader of the opposition in Queensland supported the government's refusal to guarantee the loan on the grounds that it was not the proper role of government and that Palmer had used Queensland Nickel funds for his political party. On 18 January 2016 Queensland Nickel entered

voluntary administration As a legal concept, administration is a procedure under the insolvency laws of a number of common law jurisdictions, similar to bankruptcy in the United States. It functions as a rescue mechanism for insolvent entities and allows them to carry o ...

. It is expected the refinery will re-open sometime in late 2018/2019 if all current hurdles to restarting are overcome.

Amenities

Facilities located at Yabulu include a Caltex service station.

Attractions

Bluewater Caravan Park is at 41420 Bruce Highway.

Purono Park

Purono Park is a small residential suburb situated in between Yabulu and Bluewater, approximately north of the

and Thuringowa urban centres, in

, Australia. The suburb runs adjacent to Althaus Creek and is accessed via Purono Parkway, which runs north from the Bruce Highway. The two main community facilities located in Purono Park are the Bluewater Medical Practice and the Bluewater Caravan Park.Bluewater Caravan Park
accessed 10 June 2008.

References

External links

* * {{Suburbs of Townsville Suburbs of Townsville