Address & Contact
Lake Macdonnell
South Australia 5690
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Lake MacDonnell is a
salt lake on western Eyre Peninsula, just south of
Penong on the Nullarbor. Lake McDonnell's gypsum deposits are the largest in the Southern Hemisphere and gypsum mining has been ongoing here since 1919. Gypsum Resources Australia (GRA), a company jointly owned by Boral and CSR, have owned the
mine since 1984. The current production from the
mine is around one million tonnes annually. Gypsum is mined from brine pools using bulldozers and excavation equipment. It is stockpiled for several years to allow salt to leach out from natural rainfall. It is then loaded onto trains using front-end loaders. The gypsum is transported 64km by three trains per day from Kevin to the port of
Thevenard. It is stockpiled at
Thevenard, then loaded by the company's own ships, Orninston and Kowulka and various charter vessels, where it is transported to Glebe Island in
Sydney for further processing.
Gypsum mined at
Lake MacDonnell accounts for nearly all of Australia's gypsum production and it satisfies the Australian market requirement of gypsum in the production of cement, plasterboard and for use in agriculture. The
mine creates about 40 jobs for local people, mainly living in
Ceduna.
Going to
Point Sinclair, you drive on a causeway across Lake McDonnell. The high salt concentration gives the impression of a salmon-
pink lake on clear days. The lake waters may be blue in one direction and pink in another, often reflecting the white sand dunes.