Round Oak Minerals has appointed Barminco Holdings as the preferred contractor for the Mount Colin underground mine in Queensland, with the awarding of a four-year mining services contract - with a one year option to extend - valued at approximately $95 million.
“We look forward to working closely with the Round oak team as the Mount Colin mine heads into underground production after open-cut mining ended in 2015.
“This long-term contract adds to our presence in north-west Queensland, having operated at the nearby Dugald River zinc project for more than six years,” Barminco Chief Executive Officer Paul Muller said.
Under their contract, Barminco will undertake a number of underground mining services including mine development and production.
Barminco is expecting to employ up to 65 people for this project. Mobilisation to the mine site is already underway and works are set to commence next month.
The Mount Colin copper mine is located between Cloncurry and Mount Isa in north-west Queensland. The underground mine is projected to contain an ore reserve of approximately 1.3Mt at an average grade of 2.9 per cent copper as well as 0.4g/t gold.
“There is about a kilometre of decline development to access the ore body at the first production level.
“While we’ll access development ore within the first six months, we expect it will be almost 12 months before first stope production and about two years to get the mine to steady state production rate of 400,000 tonnes per year,” Round Oak Minerals Chief Executive Officer Rob Cooper said.
Mr Cooper added that Round Oak has a toll treatment agreement with Glencore for the ore mined from Mount Colin, which will be processed at the Ernest Henry operation.
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Source: Barminco, Australian Mining, Industry Queensland