The approval of a new $1 billion rare earth and metals mine in Dubbo is great news for the region, the state and national economies, and the New South Wales minerals sector, says Australia’s resource industry employer group, AMMA. “AMMA welcomes New South Wales granting an environment protection licence to Alkane Resources, in what was the final regulatory hurdle after a decade long process for the Dubbo Zirconia Project,” says AMMA executive director, policy and public affairs, Scott Barklamb. “Following construction which will create 450 jobs, this project will produce 30,000 tonnes of rare metals and rare earths annually and…
Decmil Group Limited was recently awarded a $30.6m contract with BHP Billiton Iron Ore to design and construct a warehouse hub at Kingsford Business Park, Port Hedland, Western Australia. The facility will consist of a 12,000m2 warehouse and 35,000m2 sealed hard standing area. Construction is expected to commence in May 2016 and adds to Decmil’s long history of providing non process infrastructure to the West Australian mining sector.
Gold Road Resources Limited has completed the Pre‐Feasibility Study (PFS) for the development of its 5.62 million ounce5 (Moz) Gruyere Project, located 200 kilometres east of Laverton in Western Australia. The completion of the PFS included detailed economic analysis and further technical work building on the findings of the first stage Options Study which determined that the best go‐forward case was a large‐scale open‐pit mine utilising a conventional 7.5 Mtpa SAG/Ball Mill Circuit gravity/carbon‐in‐leach processing facility, powered by a pipeline‐supplied, gas‐fired power generation plant. The full PFS confirms the Project as one of Australia’s best undeveloped gold deposits and indicates…
Doray Minerals Limited has successfully achieved another milestone in its plans to become a multi-mine high-grade gold producer with the recent commencement of open pit mining at the Company’s Deflector Gold Project. Doray’s open pit contractor, MACA Ltd recently completed the first blast in the Deflector open pit and has commenced open pit mining operations during February, as forecast. Doray’s Managing Director, Allan Kelly, said the commencement of open pit mining represented another significant milestone in the rapid development of the Deflector Project and came less than a year after completing the takeover of Mutiny Gold in March 2015. “We…
The Department of Environment and Heritage Protection issued a final environmental authority (EA) for Adani’s Carmichael Mine project on 2 February 2016 with approximately 140 conditions, including 9 conditions relating to the black throated finch as required by the Land Court. The EA application was vigorously assessed by EHP and acted on recommendations made by the Land Court. EHP is confident the strict conditions placed on the EA, including extra requirements based on the Land Court’s recommendations, will ensure this mine will not pose an unacceptable risk to the environment and any potential impacts will be closely monitored. The project…
One of Victoria’s most productive gold mines, Fosterville Gold Mine near Bendigo, has reached a major milestone by extracting its millionth ounce of gold from the current operation. Minister for Energy and Resources Lily D’Ambrosio joined the mine’s operator, Newmarket Gold Inc, to unveil a plaque on site of the Fosterville Gold Mine to celebrate the achievement. At today’s prices, a million ounces of gold is worth approximately $1.6 billion. Fosterville Gold Mine employs 400 people and boosts the local economy by $90 million a year through wages and sourcing goods and services regionally. The Fosterville mining operation is also…
Leading mining and civil construction firm BGC Contracting Pty Ltd has been awarded a five-year contract extension with Cliff Natural Resources at its Koolyanobbing Iron Ore Project in Western Australia. The current mining contract, previously due to be completed in 2017, will be extended through to 2022, and is valued at more than $520 million. Under the contract, BGC Contracting will continue to provide the full range of mining services, including drilling, blasting, loading, hauling, dumping, crushing, screening and train load-out. BGC Contracting CEO Greg Heylen said the contract extension was recognition of the Koolyanobbing team’s ability to meet Cliffs’…
Anson Resources Limited is planning to commence exploration on its uranium and vanadium lodes claims at its Yellow Cat Project in Utah, USA. The 85 Lode claims, which were pegged by the company in 2019, form a prospective exploration land package for both uranium and vanadium rich mineralisation which covers an area of 708 hectares. Anson advised that a recent review of historical drilling programs at Yellow Cat identified high-grade uranium and vanadium mineralisation results. They noted that the 38 per cent increase in uranium spot price recorded over the past three months, together with high-grade historical results and recent…
Mineral exploration and development company, Kodal Minerals plc, has provided an update on the progress of the Bougouni Lithium Project Mining Licence application in Mali and an update on its gold exploration properties in Mali and Cote d'Ivoire. The Bougouni Project covers an area of 350km2 and is located approximately 180km south of Bamako, the capital of Mali, and benefits from established infrastructure via a sealed road from Bamako. According to Kodal, the Feasibility Study accompanying the Mining Licence application has been accepted by the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum of Mali. The Ministry of Mines and Petroleum confirmed that no…
Equinor (formerly Statoil and StatoilHydro) and SSE Renewables, the two companies behind the world’s largest offshore wind farm Dogger Bank, have just revealed plans to build a new Operations and Maintenance Base at the Port of Tyne in the UK. The Dogger Bank Wind Farm is a 50:50 Joint Venture between Equinor and SSE Renewables. Construction of the wind farm, led by SSE Renewables, officially commenced in January 2020 and as operator for the operations phase, Equinor will construct this new Operations and Maintenance base, and operate the wind farm for its expected life of more than 25 years. The overall wind farm comprises three…
Following the suspension of operations in Argentina, Brazil and South Africa due to the the COVID-19 outbreak, AngloGold Ashanti has now restarted production in these countries. The company’s sole mine in Argentina, Cerro Vanguardia, successfully restarted milling operations on 6 April 2020. The operation has now ramped up capacity and will initially process stockpiles, allowing production to remain near planned levels with a significantly smaller staff complement. The mining operation had been suspended since 21 March 2020 as a result of countrywide COVID-19 related restrictions on travel and border closings. In Brazil, at Mineração Serra Grande S.A. (Serra Grande), operations…
Australian junior miner Southern Gold Limited has completed field work in the Jinan and Neungju Basins in South Korea, which has confirmed new gold mineralised areas that warrant follow up work. The intensive reconnaissance sampling program involved 238 new samples being taken and submitted for analysis. Several rock chip and float samples returned anomalous grade gold results. Work included field traversing and extensive rock sampling. This process has succeeded in finding multiple untested vein systems in addition to very small-scale historical mine workings. The two regions investigated were the Neungju Basin surrounding Southern Gold's Neungju Project, including follow up sampling…
A mining company seeking to become Nigeria’s first integrated steel producer is expected to move its head office to South Australia next month. Since 2012, ASX-listed company Kogi Iron Limited (Kogi Iron) has been working on a plan to establish an open-pit iron ore mine in Kogi State using Australian expertise. Yet the fall in the iron ore price in recent years has caused the company to pivot from an ore exporter to a steel billet producer with a cast steel feedstock plant in Nigeria to supply local industry. The appointment of Adelaide-based managing director David Turvey and Chairman Greg…
Endeavour Mining Corporation and SEMAFO Inc. have entered into a definitive agreement whereby Endeavour will acquire all of the issued and outstanding securities of SEMAFO through a Plan of Arrangement under the Business Corporations Act (Québec). The Transaction will create a top 15 global gold producer and the largest in West Africa with six operations and an attractive growth pipeline. Due to the strong strategic rationale for local consolidation, both sets of Board of Directors have unanimously approved the Transaction. Michael Beckett, Chairman of Endeavour said the agreement will create one of the leading gold companies, with the largest portfolio…
