BHP Nickel West has awarded a contract to CIMIC Group’s global mining services provider, Thiess, to provide mining services at the Leinster underground nickel mine in Western Australia.
Image: Nickel spheres made by the Mond process. Photo: courtesy of René Rausch/Wikipedia.
Under the $190m contract, Thiess will be responsible for providing complete underground mining services and equipment for the Leinster mine.
CIMIC Group chief executive officer Michael Wright said: “This contract recognises our close working relationship with BHP Nickel West at Leinster Underground Mine. It acknowledges our ability to work flexibly with BHP Nickel West to meet the mine’s growing development and production needs.”
The contract work will support the mine’s lateral development and associated ore production including load and haul, shotcreting, cable bolting and full fleet maintenance services.
CIMIC group mining and mineral processing executive and Thiess managing director Douglas Thompson said: “We are pleased to continue our work with BHP Nickel West at the Leinster Underground Mine. We have a deep understanding of the mine and our team is well placed to help support its next phase of development and production.”
Located in the northern goldfields of Western Australia, the Leinster Underground is an underground nickel mine within BHP’s Leinster mine complex.
Thiess said it began work in 2016 at the Leinster mine when the team gained access to nearly 230,000 ton of ore by excavating around 610m of horizontal development using sub-level open stoping mining methods.
Earlier this year, Thiess won A$480m ($353.7m) contract extension from Australian coal miner QCoal to continue operations at the QCoal Northern Hub located in Queensland’s Bowen Basin.
The four-year extended contract will continue Thiess to deliver mining services to the Sonoma, Sonoma North, Drake and Jax coal mines that make up the QCoal Northern Hub.
Thiess will be responsible for mine planning, drill and blast, overburden removal and coal mining at the four mines with works under the new contract to commence from this month.