A $400 million contract to provide mining services has been awarded to Downer for the Gruyere gold joint venture between Gold Fields and Gold Road Resources in Western Australia.
Downer’s scope of works include construction of haul roads, stockpiles and other infrastructure, drilling and blasting, loading and haulage of ore and waste, run of mine feed and technical services.
The five-year contract at the Eastern Goldfields site will see Downer have a peak workforce at Gruyere of around 170 people. Downer plans to launch construction of the operation in early 2018 with mining scheduled to start in the December 2018 quarter.
According to the the Gruyere JV, the mining services company was awarded the contract based on its price competitiveness, relevant experience on technically similar projects, demonstrated leadership in safety, environmental stewardship and community engagement.
General manager for Gruyere JV Steve Price said the awarded contract was a result of six months work that involved numerous capable contract mining companies.
“Downer was selected as the preferred business partner for the project as they led all facets of the key criteria set for the award of the mining contract,” Price said.
Gold Road formed the JV with South Africa’s Gold Fields in November last year after discovering the greenfields project located close to the Northern Territory border.
Mining activities at Gruyere include a fleet of 225-tonne payload dump trucks, 400-tonne excavators, production blasthole drills and support equipment to move around 31 million tonnes (Mt) of material a year.
According to Grant Fenn, Downer’s chief executive officer, the contractor is looking forward to working closely with the Gruyere project team to help develop the new mine.
“It will also build on our extensive operations in Western Australia, which includes providing mining services at the nearby Sunrise Dam gold mine as well as at Roy Hill, Cape Preston and Karara iron ore mines,” Fenn said.
Earlier in the week, Downer announced that it had parted ways with Adani as the major contractor on the Carmichael coal project in the Galilee Basin of Queensland.
With the Gruyere contact as well as the recent $312 million JV contract win with Ausenco at Carrapateena mine in South Australia, Downer will offset the loss of the Adani contract.
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Source: Australian Mining.