AuTeco said the agreement provides continued First Nation support for access to tenure for exploration purposes, while providing confidence to the Indigenous inhabitants regarding commercial, social benefit and cultural matters.

“Both parties have a strong commitment to create mutual benefits while continuing to respect the traditional territories, activities, values and rights of the MOFN,” AuTeco said.

The revised agreement replaces the 2009 exploration Memorandum of Understanding and now incorporates all AuTECO tenure that is located within MOFN traditional territories. The previous MOU covered an area adjacent to the historic Pickle Crow mine and all work completed by AuTECO to date has been restricted to the region defined under the terms of the 2009 agreement. The Company has significantly expanded the project area to ~500km2 since assuming management control in March 2020 and the updated agreement ensures all tenure, including key regional exploration targets for the upcoming winter drill campaign, are included.

AuTeco said completion of the agreement secured support of exploration and advanced exploration activities at the Pickle Crow Project and outlines a path forward for an Impact Benefit Agreement should the company decide to pursue commercial development of the mine.

AuTECO said it welcomes the MOFN as shareholders via the issuance of 5 million ordinary shares to the community fund. The shares will be issued under the company’s available Listing Rule 7.1 placement capacity for nil cash consideration.

AuTECO Chief Executive Officer Darren Cooke said: “We are delighted to sign this exploration agreement with the Mishkeegogamang Ojibway First Nation.

“I would like to pay tribute to Chief David Masakeyash and the Council for the spirit in which the discussions have taken place.

“We will continue to respect the land, tradition and culture of the First Nations peoples whilst doing our best to share the economic and social benefits of our investment in the Pickle Lake area.

“This is just the beginning of the partnership. With the Mishkeegogamang becoming shareholders of AuTECO, the community will benefit from our ongoing success at Pickle Crow.”

Chief David Masakeyash of the Mishkeegogamang Ojibway First Nation said: “We are pleased to have reached agreement with AuTECO regarding their operations in our territory, which represents the strong and mutually respectful relationship that has resulted from our engagements.

“In this agreement, we have developed a strong framework for the protection of our land, and certainty our members will fairly benefit from the work undertaken. Each of these qualities are fundamental to building a relationship with our nation.”

The post AuTECO Signs Pivotal Exploration Agreement with Ontario First Nation appeared first on The Australian Mining Review.

Thiess’s mining services contract with BHP Mitsubishi Alliance (BMA) for the Caval Ridge operations in Queensland, Australia, has been extended. With a potential term of up to five years, the new contract starting on 1 December 2022 has revenue to Thiess valued up to $600 million.

Under this contract, Thiess will continue to provide mining services at the Caval Ridge mine, operating and maintaining mining equipment to move overburden to support BMA’s production requirements.

Thiess Executive Chair and CEO Michael Wright said: “Thiess has been providing mining solutions to BMA at Caval Ridge since December 2017.

“Importantly, our team continues to have a clear commitment and focus on fostering diversity and respectful workplaces, with almost 30% of the workforce being female and 10% being Indigenous. We continue to seek opportunities to bring under-represented groups into the mining industry, and delivering sustainable mining solutions for our clients and stakeholders.”

Thiess Executive General Manager Australia East Cluny Randell said: “We’re very proud to build on our safe and strong performance at Caval Ridge, and extend our deep working relationship with BMA. We will continue to drive long-term economic value by creating local jobs and regional supply opportunities, and supporting the communities where we operate.”

Thiess is currently recruiting for a range of roles including truck, multi-skilled and excavator operators in the Bowen Basin. For more information go to thiess.com/careers

The post Thiess secures contract extension for BMA’s Caval Ridge Project appeared first on The Australian Mining Review.

The strategic alliance agreement sets out terms that will see Envirosuite and SGS work collaboratively to promote, market, and sell bundled services that combine SGS’s testing, inspection, and certification services with Envirosuite’s ‘EVS Omnis’ environmental intelligence platform to provide complete compliance and operational optimisation solutions for companies in a range of sectors globally, including the Mining, Heavy Industrial and Oil & Gas sectors. This partnership and resulting bundled services is expected to expand global market opportunities, accelerate revenue growth, and increase customer value for both companies.

Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, SGS employs 96,000 people across a network of 2,700 offices and laboratories globally. Combining SGS’s services with Envirosuite’s EVS Omnis platform will allow customers to manage their compliance requirements while monitoring, modelling, and predicting their site’s environmental impacts to make better-informed operating decisions and preserve critical community relationships.

The strategic alliance agreement between Envirosuite and SGS aims to benefit both parties with greater market access, provision of better integrated customer solutions and leverages both parties’ technologies and respective expertise to achieve strategic growth objectives globally.

For Envirosuite, SGS’s significant global footprint will provide access to additional geographic markets including Africa and the Middle East. For SGS, Envirosuite’s EVS Omnis platform will provide strong added value to both existing and prospective customers.

Frankie Ng, SGS CEO said: “The partnership with Envirosuite is consistent with SGS’ vision to enable a better, safer and more interconnected world. To make better use of the data we generate every day in the field or in our laboratories, SGS is pursuing a data enablement strategy across its business lines. In this sense, the partnership with Envirosuite is an important milestone for environmental compliance at industrial sites and infrastructure projects.”

Jason Cooper, Envirosuite CEO said: “We are excited to partner with SGS, a leading and globally recognised organisation, to expand our opportunities especially in the Mining, Heavy Industrial and Oil & Gas sectors. We expect that this collaborative relationship will produce combined solutions that will deliver even greater value to our customers, and we look forward to seeing this strategic alliance accelerate revenue growth for both companies.”

The post Envirosuite and SGS enter into strategic alliance partnership agreement appeared first on The Australian Mining Review.

The powerful Pit Viper drills will be used to drill for magnetite, one of the main iron ores.

The equipment order was booked in the third quarter 2022 and is valued at more than MSEK 300.

“Epiroc delivered Pit Viper rigs to the Sino Iron site in 2019, and we are proud to continue this productive partnership as CITIC Pacific Mining is expanding the mine while optimizing productivity and safety,” says Epiroc’s President and CEO Helena Hedblom.

“In the last three years, Epiroc has provided satisfactory after-sale services to help the three Pit Viper 351 drill rigs perform to expectation and has also successfully established mutual trust with CITIC Pacific Mining,” says Xianglin Cheng, General Manager – Mining at CITIC Pacific Mining. “The confidence and trust are the major reasons for us to choose Epiroc.”

The Pit Viper drills are manufactured in Texas, United States. They will be installed with automation features including AutoDrill, which allows for up to 100% of the hole drilling cycle to be in automatic mode with high consistency and reliability of operations; and AutoLevel, which minimizes the time it takes to level and delevel and hence provides more time drilling.

Delivery will begin in 2023.

The post Epiroc Wins Large Mining Equipment Order in Australia appeared first on The Australian Mining Review.

Liebherr-Australia executive general manager customer service Tony Johnstone and BHP general manager South Flank Steve Campbell recently met in Perth to mark the signing of a deal to repower the South Flank R 9600 fleet with D9812 Liebherr engines and the strong ongoing partnership between the OEM and the miner. Repowering the R 9600 fleet enables reduced maintenance and standardised parts capability.

The integration will mark an important step in the partnership, while helping the customer to reduce maintenance and standardise parts capability.

The integration follows intensive factory and field validations on the D98 engine series which includes a two-year validation study at BHP’s Jimblebar mine where the Liebherr D9812 has successfully powered an R 9400 for almost 20,000 hours.

“BHP has a long-standing relationship with Liebherr across our Western Australian Iron Ore operations, and we have six of their largest machines in operation at South Flank,” Steve Campbell, BHP’s general manager for South Flank said,

“We’re looking forward to continuing with this collaboration which promises to bring performance and availability improvements to South Flank as we continue to ramp up production.”

Mark Pickett, vice president, Minerals Australia Supply, said his company welcomed the introduction of Liebherr engines into its equipment to deliver a more sustainable outcome and lower overall cost, as well as allowing Liebherr to have better control of product improvement.

“We look forward to continued partnership with Liebherr on these initiatives that make BHP’s operations more productive and improve sustainability.”

Dr Joerg Lukowski, Liebherr Mining executive vice president sales and marketing, said the mining equipment giant also attaches great importance to this new step in the partnership and is looking forward to the continued collaboration.

Liebherr also attaches great importance to this new step in the partnership and is looking forward to the continued collaboration.

“We are pleased to be expanding our partnership with BHP through the integration of our engine technology,” Dr Lukowski said.

“Our longstanding relationship and shared values of innovation make BHP an ideal partner. We look forward to seeing the tangible benefits of the D9812 engines within the R 9600s at South Flank mine, one of the most innovative mines in the world.”

Building on the Liebherr Group’s shared in-house competencies across different product segments, the D98 series completes the existing Liebherr engine portfolio for mining equipment by expanding into the upper power range.

Designed specifically for the mining industry, the D98 series engine offers low fuel consumption and consequent emission reductions. The engine is also compatible for use with sustainably produced Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO) fuel which can significantly reduce CO₂ emissions.

The new engines will be supported locally by Liebherr-Australia. The first D9812 repowered R 9600 is scheduled to be operational by early quarter 1 2023, with repowers of the remaining R 9600 fleet to occur over 2023 and 2024.

The post Liebherr Awarded Significant Engine Contract With BHP appeared first on The Australian Mining Review.

Pat Nill, Boart Longyear’s Vice President of Global Products, said the achievement included the coordination of teams in Poland, Australia, Germany, and the US.

“We are very proud of what our Polish manufacturing team and local Australian teams have achieved, which required strong global coordination between the production, engineering, and R&D teams to meet our customer’s specifications. The multiple teams truly embodied our corporate value of teamwork,” Mr Nill said.

Focusing on the customer’s needs, Boart Longyear’s Adelaide-based sales team partnered with the Company’s R&D teams in the US, Germany, and Poland and Polish manufacturing team to offer a highly customised version of the LF 160.

The LF160 is a CE-certified surface coring drill rig. The FREEDOM loader is a hands-free rod loader increasing safety for drilling crews.Established in 1890, Boart Longyear is in its 132nd year as the world’s leading provider of drilling services, orebody-data-collection technology, and innovative, safe and productivity-driven drilling equipment. With its main focus in mining and exploration activities spanning a wide range of commodities, including copper, gold, nickel, zinc, uranium, and other metals and minerals, the company also holds a substantial presence in the energy, oil sands exploration, and environmental sectors.

The Global Drilling Services division operates for a diverse mining customer base with drilling methods including diamond coring exploration, reverse circulation, large diameter rotary, mine dewatering, water supply drilling, pump services, production, and sonic drilling services.

The post Boart Longyear’s Polish Manufacturing Plant Completes Large Australian Order appeared first on The Australian Mining Review.

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Following initial test work, this seamless transition to Eriez magnetic separators has improved plant recoveries.

Grange Resources Limited’s Interim Financial Report for the Half-Year Ended 30 June 2021 noted:

“A project at the Concentrator was completed in the quarter to replace the Rougher Magnetic Separators. This involved design improvements and new technology to replace the 53-year-old magnetic separators that extracts the magnetite from the ore feed. Eight units have now been successfully implemented, with the upgrades improving plant recovery and efficiency.”

In bottom line terms, it indicates that 1% extra yield at 677,607 tonnes for the June 2021 quarter alone translates to an extra 6,709 tonnes or A$4.3M (US$ 3.2M) annualised, given constant production over the next nine months, and at a nominal rate of US$120/t concentrate depending on the commodity prices at the time.

Eriez’ wet drum magnetic separators incorporate agitating axial poles generating 1150 gauss from an “Interpole” magnetic element design which produces a deep magnetic field to maximise magnetite recovery.

The self-levelling tank holds slurry level constant and has an internal weir within the feed box which is set by adjusting the weir bars from the non-magnetic discharge chute, seen in the figure at right.

The Eriez 1219mm diameter 1150 IP Self-Levelling Counter Rotation Wet Drum Separators were placed in singular ‘stand-alone’ layout as adopted at Savage River to maintain a seamless transition to the new separators.

They can also be placed in back-to-back formation which minimizes footprint by sharing a common feed manifold between two separators, reducing the amount of pipework and fittings as well as occupying less concentrator floor space.

This alternative is a very attractive proposal for greenfield projects. Eriez can further enhance your operation by implementing Industry 4.0 in the magnetic separation process system to include remote condition monitoring and self-correction initiatives and offers laboratory capability and other testing services at their factory in Epping, Victoria, for wet and dry magnetic separation.

Eriez has the tools to test and provide detailed process analysis and state-of-the-art solutions for magnetic and flotation technologies applied to iron ore beneficiation processes.

The post Eriez Wet Drums Boost Tasmanian Project Iron Ore Recoveries appeared first on The Australian Mining Review.

A $189M new high purity alumina (HPA) plant will be established in Kwinana, WA, by FYI Resources, with about 30pc of the financing secured from a European private fund.

Luxembourg’s GEM Global Yield, a US$3.4b alternative investment group, will be financing $80m or about 30pc of the cost to build the proposed Kwinana plant.

First production of HPA is targeted in the second quarter of 2022, with the company aiming to produce up to 8000tpa.

FYI Resources managing director Roland Hill says the company is pleased to secure significant equity funding, which will de-risk the project by providing funding access at critical development stages.

“Our definitive feasibility study outcome was outstanding, with results within five pc of our pre-feasibility study key metrics,” he said.

“We have also revised the reserve estimate at Cadoux, that covers the entire project life of 25 years, and will provide the company with a reliable, single source of feedstock for this duration.”

GEM was founded in 1991 and manages a diverse set of investment vehicles focused on emerging markets across the world, with 370 transactions completed in more than 70 countries.

The post European funds for aluminium plant appeared first on The Australian Mining Review.

ANTIPA Minerals (ASX: AZY) has entered into a $60m farm-in agreement and exploration joint venture agreement with gold miner Newcrest.

The agreement covers the southern part of Antipa Minerals’ 100pc-owned exploration ground in the Paterson province of WA, which will now be known as the Wilki project.

The Wilki project abuts Newcrest’s Telfer mine for gold and copper and its O’Callaghans deposit.

Under the deal Newcrest has the option to acquire a 75pc interest in the joint venture for Wilki.

Also, Newcrest has entered into an agreement with Antipa Minerals to acquire a 9.9pc shareholding in the Australian company through a $3.9m share placement.

Antipa Minerals chairman Stephen Power said the agreement with Newcrest will ensure a robust exploration program for Wilki over the coming years.

“We are delighted to welcome Newcrest as a shareholder of Antipa and to be partnering with them to progress the exploration of our Wilki project in the world-class Paterson province of WA,” he said.

The post Antipa in $60m farm-in deal appeared first on The Australian Mining Review.