BHP gets green light to develop Venus mine in WA

Monica Gameng   |   December 9, 2018

The Western Australian Government has given approval to the development of BHP’s Venus nickel mine in the northern Goldfields, near Leinster, which will feed the mined nickel sulphate to BHP’s Nickel West battery chemicals operations.

“This completes all necessary approvals required for the Venus deposit, and our team… has started developing access drives to the site.

“Continued drilling over the coming months will better define the resource. We expect first stoping production early next year,” BHP told Reuters through a statement.

The Venus deposit was first discovered in 2012 and it has approximately 200,000 tonnes of nickel reserves, which is set to be fed to BHP’s Leinster concentrator and mill for the next eight years.

BHP is also developing a nickel sulphate plant in Perth and it is expected to be operational beginning in April 2019. The plant is anticipated to have a production capacity of up to 100,000 tonnes of nickel sulphate, with about 22,000 tonnes of nickel to be produced.

BHP is planning to double the plant’s capacity in the future, with a potential Stage 2 project expansion.

The development of the Venus mine is expected to support up to 150 jobs during the construction phase and approximately 200 jobs once the mine is operational.

The Venus deposit is the first of three Leinster and Mt Keith projects to go underway. BHP is also set to develop the Mt Keith satellite deposits as well as the Leinster B-11 block cave to help boost production at Nickel West.

Receive the latest industry news and project updates straight to your inbox by subscribing to Felix Project News today.

Source: Reuters; The West Australian; Australian Mining; Mining Technology
Monica Gameng
Monica Gameng
As Felix's Marketing Assistant since 2015, Monica is responsible for researching and sharing new and progressing projects within the construction and mining sectors in Australia. It's no surprise that Monica has her finger on the pulse of Australian major projects given she has produced more than 1,000 posts. She truly is an industry expert.
Follow me:

Related Articles

Projects
Thiess wins $190m mining contract at Leinster mine WA

CIMIC Group’s mining services provider Thiess has been awarded a $190 million contract by BHP Nickel West, extending Thiess’ operations at the Leinster underground nickel mine in Western Australia’s northern goldfields, about 370 kilometres north of Kalgoorlie.

Projects
Thiess wins $225m mining services contract for Rocky's Reward mine in WA

Thiess - a CIMIC Group member - has been awarded a $225 million contract to continue providing mining services for BHP Nickel West at the Rocky’s Reward mine - located at Leinster, approximately 400 kilometres north of Kalgoorlie, Western Australia.

Projects
Western Areas green lights development of Odysseus nickel mine in WA

Following the completion of a definitive feasibility study (DFS), Western Areas has given the green light to the development of the Odysseus nickel mine, which is part of the Cosmos Nickel Complex located 30 kilometres north of Leinster, Western Australia.

Get the latest project news

Formerly known as the PlantMiner blog, Felix Project News is Australia's top 10 Construction blog. Join thousands of construction and mining pros getting the best content right in their inbox.
  • updates on Australia's pipeline of state and federal projects
  • fresh contract awards from major contractors and builders

If you're looking to contact us about other matters, please contact us.