DRA Global’s DRA Pacific Pty subsidiary has been awarded the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the Dargues gold mine in New South Wales, Australia.

Dargues is owned by Diversified Minerals, an associated company of PYBAR Mining Services. As a leading underground mining services company within Australia, Pybar will be developing and operating the project’s underground mine and other infrastructure, according to DRA.

DRA’s project scope entails the engineering, procurement and construction of a 355,000 t/y capacity gold processing facility and mine backfill plant at Dargues. The processing plant will comprise crushing, milling, flotation and filtration circuits and produce a sulphide concentrate for export. The mine is expected to produce an average of 50,000 oz/y of gold in the first six years of production.

Greg McRostie the Executive Vice President for DRA in the Asia Pacific Region, said: “This EPC contract further enhances DRA’s global position as the partner of choice for the delivery of projects to clients in the gold industry. Over the past five years, DRA has successfully delivered 10 projects and completed in excess of 35 studies for our client’s gold projects across the globe.”

DRA Global has been involved with Dargues since 2011, supporting Diversified Minerals through various studies and optimisations culminating in the final project execution phase about to start.

“This relatively long partnership and strong relationship developed over the project definition phase is a true reflection of the client focused approach of DRA,” McRostie said.

Site work will commence in February 2019 and first ore is expected to be processed in early 2020.