International Mining’s fortnightly project watch is a great way of keeping up to date with your peers – other mining companies, other consultants or other engineering companies. The fortnightly issue build into a global mine project overview. If you are a supplier – it is full of potential sales leads. Highlights of today’s issue – the usual important and comprehensive fortnightly report on global projects, with some 50 pages of updates – also including a 15 Mt/y Coal Handling Plant (CHP) at the Pakri Barwadih project, NewGold’s consolidation at the Blackwater gold project in British Columbia ….. read on

Rio Tinto is accelerating the development of the Simandou iron ore project in Guinea with the approval of a further $211 million for continued studies and $1.117 billion of funding for commitments for early works and procurement of long-lead items. This funding will allow the project to move forward towards first shipment of ore by mid-2015.

BHP Billiton has noted the announcement by the South Australian and Commonwealth Governments to formally approve the Environmental Impact Statement for the Olympic Dam project. The project aims to develop a new open pit copper, uranium and gold mine and creates the potential to increase copper production from around 180,000 to 750,000 t/y for decades to come.

New Gold is consolidating the Blackwater gold project in British Columbia. In June it closed a C$550 million all-share takeover of Richfield Ventures, the majority owner of the project, and now it is trying  to acquire Silver Quest Resources in a proposed C$131 million all-share takeover. It is also expanding its land position around Blackwater through the acquisition of Geo Minerals.

In Bolivia, Korea Resources (KORES) has confirmed the discovery of a deposit believed to contain 100 Mt of copper near the town of Coro Coro, located 110 km southwest of La Paz, in the province of Pacajes.

Blackthorn Resources Managing Director Scott Lowe: “The final positive assay results from Perkoa are consistent with the assumptions used in the enhanced business case proposed by Glencore. The discovery of high-grade silver adjacent to the Perkoa zinc ore reserve provides further confidence that the business case for Perkoa can be improved to provide increased value to stakeholders. The company is now thoroughly reviewing the technical and financial details to consider these improvements going forward.”

Arafura Resources has confirmed the new discovery of rare earths mineralisation located during shallow RC exploration drilling near its 100% owned Nolans Bore rare earths deposit in Australia’s Northern Territory. The project is underpinned by a worldclass rare earths deposit which has sufficient resources to support mining and chemical processing operations for at least 20 years. Annual production will be 20,000 t of rare earth oxides from the Whyalla Rare Earths Complex, equivalent to about 10% of the world’s supply.

Ausenco has been awarded a $30 million Create phase engineering services contract for the $1.5 billion Aktogay copper project owned by Kazakhmys. Kazakhmys is the world’s 11th largest copper producer managing over 20% of Kazakhstan’s copper supply. Ausenco’s role involves the engineering and design of the open-pit mine and once operational it is estimated that the concentrator  will  produce  around  100,000 t/y of copper concentrate.

Bateman Engineering (India), wholly-owned subsidiary of Bateman Engineering has won a contract worth $2 million from Kolkata-based Thiess India. Bangalore-based Bateman will be providing EPM services for the proposed 15 Mt/y Coal Handling Plant (CHP) at the Pakri Barwadih coal project in Jharkand, which has been awarded to Thiess India by the NTPC.

Carpathian Gold is proceeding to obtain funding for the construction and development of the corporation’s Riacho dos Machados gold project in Brazil.

Curis Resources has announced its intent to advance project operations in early 2012 for its Florence Copper property in Arizona.

Banro has had the first gold production at its wholly-owned Twangiza gold mine in South Kivu province, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Twangiza is Banro’s first gold mine along the 210 km Twangiza-Namoya gold belt where the company has to date delineated five projects within the 13 fully licensed mining concessions.

Kagara will proceed to complete the proposed acquisition of the Einasleigh copper project in North Queensland from Copper Strike after the transaction was approved by Copper Strike shareholders.

Eurasian Natural Resources’ Directors have unanimously approved the exercise of ENRC’s rights under a Call Option to acquire the outstanding shares in Shubarkol.

B2Gold and Auryx Gold have signed a binding agreement to combine the two companies and : Western Copper and Gold has announced the spin-out of Copper North Mining and NorthIsle Copper and Gold and the re-naming of Western Copper to Western Copper and Gold has been completed.

Full details on all these projects and information on and contacts for many, many more are to be found in the October 23 issue of International Mining Project News….

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