AIC Mines Limited has announced the award of an engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contract for the expansion of the Eloise processing facility, in Queensland, Australia, to GR Engineering Services.
The EPC contract is to allow the Eloise processing facility to expand from the current 725,000 t/y capacity to 1.1 Mt/y throughput capacity, with the pact being on a fixed cost basis of A$77.6 million ($50.3 million) including provisional sums (excluding contingency). The cost includes approximately A$11.4 million of oversized equipment to allow for a straightforward later expansion to 1.5 Mt/y throughput capacity, it noted.
Construction is expected to commence in October 2025. This would see the 1.1 Mt/y expansion ready for tie-in and commissioning in the December 2026 quarter. This schedule aligns with the ramp-up in production at the Jericho deposit where first development ore is expected to be intersected in June 2026. The expansion of the Eloise processing plant and ongoing development of the Jericho deposit is forecast to lift annual production to over 20,000 t/y copper in concentrate from the 2028 financial year, up from the current 12,500 t/y.
The scope of the expansion comprises the design, procurement, construction, installation and commissioning of the expanded processing plant, including:
- New crushing and screening plant;
- New grinding and classification circuit;
- New rougher flotation cell; and
- New concentrate filtration circuit.
The expansion has been designed to minimise impact on current Eloise operations during construction, AIC Mines said.
Commenting on the EPC contract award, AIC Mines’ Managing Director, Aaron Colleran, said: “GR Engineering put forward a competitive tender for the Eloise expansion role and have shown a commitment to working closely with AIC Mines to deliver the expansion safely, efficiently and with minimal disruption to our current operations. I look forward to working with them over the next 18 months as we transform Eloise into a cornerstone asset.”
Eloise is a high-grade operating underground mine 60 km southeast of Cloncurry in north Queensland. It commenced production in 1996 and has since produced approximately 376,000 t of copper and 185,000 oz of gold. AIC Mines acquired a 100% interest in the mine in November 2021.
Current operations consist of an underground mine accessed via decline. The upper levels of the mine (above 1,190 m below surface) are extracted by longhole open stoping and the lower levels are extracted by sublevel caving and longhole open stoping. Eloise is an owner-miner operation with a mining contractor used for underground development and production drilling.
Eloise ore is processed through a conventional processing circuit consisting of three stage crushing, grinding, sulphide flotation and concentrate filtration. Metallurgically the ore is very consistent as the ore mineralogy at Eloise is almost exclusively chalcopyrite. Processing achieves copper recoveries around 94-95% and produces a clean concentrate, the company states. The concentrate has significant by-product credits from gold and silver.