UGL has moved to a new manufacturing facility in Auburn, New South Wales, from where it will continue to support the railway industry.
The facility is more modern than the previous one and better equipped at accommodating people living with a disability. It will be more efficient, comprised of one single facility rather than lots of small buildings.
The move comes after the company spent nearly 50 years at its former location, in Milperra.
UGL Managing Director Doug Moss said the company was constantly evolving and remained a leader in the rail industry.
“Our new Auburn facility will allow us to grow and continue to innovate, but it’s our people that make UGL great,” he said.
“We are lucky enough to have a breadth of knowledge and experience, with some of our employees working for us for 30 years or more.
“We are a local manufacturer employing local people, using the latest in innovative design and combining it with all that fantastic experience.”
A sustainable approach to the move was undertaken, achieving:
71.6 tonnes of steel recycled
11.2t of aluminium recycled
10.5t of copper recycled
13.5t of paper and cardboard
The new manufacturing facility produces, repairs and tests signalling equipment and traction equipment, including:
Signal wayside equipment
Solid state interlocking
Train protection systems
Trackside cabinets
Rectifiers for traction power
Heavy DC traction circuit breakers
The site will play a crucial role within the industry, with UGL’s radio and signalling construction teams currently supporting major NSW infrastructure projects.
As well, UGL strives to transform train travel by supporting Future Railway Mobile Communication Systems (FRMCS) in Australia once the standards are finalised in Europe, and through the adoption of new technologies.
“It may be a new address, but we have the same high standard of quality and commitment our clients and communities have experienced for decades,” Moss said.
Strandline’s project portfolio contains high quality assets which offer a range of development options and timelines, geographic diversity, and scalability. They include the world-scale Coburn mineral sands project in Western Australia, currently ramping up into production, and the emerging Tanzanian mineral sands growth projects Fungoni, Tajiri, and Bagamoyo.
Strandline’s exploration and development focuses primarily on discovering and evaluating mineral sands ore bodies that show an abundance of higher value minerals, nominally zircon, rutile and monazite, with the lesser value minerals of ilmenite and garnet as a co-product to the product suite.
Mineral sands are heavy minerals found in sediments on, or near to, the surface of ancient beach, river or dunal system. Strandline’s proposed mineral sands mining method involves both dry mining (Coburn and Fungoni projects) and wet hydraulic mining (Tajiri project). Mining units and wet concentration plant (WCP) separate the heavy valuable minerals (zircon, monazite, rutile, leucoxene, ilmenite) from the waste material. The WCP design utilises multiple stages of high-capacity gravity separation and classification to produce a high grade +90% heavy mineral concentrate (HMC).
Following four months of record gold production at its King of the Hills (KOTH) gold mine, Red 5 has released its June 2023 quarter report.
During the quarter, the KOTH mine produced 61,705 ounces (oz) of gold, a significant increase from the 40,869oz produced in the March quarter.
Red 5’s June quarter sales equalled to 58,960oz, an increase from its March quarter’s 40,907oz. These gold sales resulted in operating cash flows of $50.6 million.
The company achieved the upper end of production and mid-range of cost guidance for the second half of the 2023 financial year, with production of 102,574oz at an AISC of $1837/oz against guidance of 90k-105k oz at AISC of $1750–1950/oz.
On top of successful operations, the company saw an improvement in safety, seeing no recordable injuries.
An ongoing board renewal process also began in the June quarter, with Russell Clark being appointed as chair and Peter Johnston being appointed as a non-executive director.
As of June 30, Red 5’s net debt position improved, reducing by $44.5 million to $81.9 million, its cash and bullion being $45.9 million, $22.0 million of bank debt being repaid, with $127.8 million outstanding on the KOTH debt facility.
“The June quarter has been a watershed period for Red 5, with the KOTH mine delivering strong results for the company, both operationally and financially and with a greatly improved safety performance,” Red 5 managing director Mark Williams said.
Red 5’s FY2024 production guidance has been set to 195k–215k ounces at AISC of $1850–$2100/oz.
“Our clear focus for the year ahead is to continue delivering safe, consistent and profitable ounces from the KOTH processing hub. This will, in turn, provide us with a platform to execute our longer-term growth strategy,” Williams said.
Fenix Resources has completed the acquisition of Mount Gibson Iron’s Mid-West iron ore, port and rail assets.
In June 2023, Mount Gibson reached a conditional agreement to divest its Mid-West hematite iron ore mining and infrastructure assets to Fenix for $25 million. The deal comprised of $10 million in cash and 60 million Fenix shares and additional options.
The agreement makes Mount Gibson the single largest shareholder in Fenix with an approximate interest of 8.6 per cent.
The assets acquired by Fenix include:
the Shine iron ore mine, an operational iron ore mine currently on care and maintenance with a mineral resource estimate of 15 million tonnes at 58 per cent
two storage sheds at Geraldton Port that are on-wharf infrastructure consisting of Shed 4 with storage capacity of 120,000 tonnes and Shed 5 with storage capacity of 240,000 tonnes both with in-loading access via truck or rail
the two mid-west rail sidings, Ruvidini and Perenjori rail sidings, providing access to the main Mid-West rail network connecting to Geraldton Port and assembly locations for product storage and blending activities
assets at the Extension Hill iron ore mine that are large scale operational crushing and screening plant, associated equipment, and interests in an operational 138 bed mining camp, all currently on care and maintenance.
The acquisition is expected to provide Fenix with opportunities such as reducing the cost of its Iron Ridge project located approximately 600 kilometres north-northeast of Perth, Western Australia, as well as expanding the project’s production.
Fenix chairman John Welborn said the acquisition of Mount Gibson’s Mid-West iron ore and port assets is a game changer.
“This transformational event for Fenix will drive material economies of scale, provide flexibility to expand iron ore production and operate new projects concurrently,” Welborn said.
“In expanding a mine-to-port logistics solution for ourselves and other producers in the Mid-West, we also create employment opportunities which will strongly support regional economic growth and create exceptional shareholder value.”
South32’s Sierra Gorda copper mine in Chile. Image: South32
ARI was on hand for a recent fireside chat with South32 CEO Graham Kerr, who reflected on how the major mining company has gotten to where it is today.
South32, which was demerged from BHP in 2015, describes itself as a “globally diversified mining and metals company” and is now transitioning to become a key manganese producer in the US.
The company’s future is certainly bright, but chief executive officer Graham Kerr admitted South32 initially had a portfolio that could only be described as a “mixed bag”.
“Within BHP, there are lots of assets that have a lot of opportunity for development in the future that weren’t quite getting the love or systems they needed,” he said during a fireside chat at a recent Melbourne Mining Club luncheon.
“For me, the demerger was a great opportunity for both companies to be better than what they were together. (And) both companies have continued to change and evolve.”
South32’s commodity mix included energy coal, metallurgical coal and manganese, with nickel, lead, silver, zinc and aluminium also featuring in the portfolio.
It was from this position that Kerr and his colleagues set about finding potential in base metals.
Eight years on, the company’s portfolio has changed a lot since Kerr sat in the first South32 meeting with then-chairman David Crawford.
“We certainly had a belief for what assets belonged in South32 and what assets didn’t belong in South32,” Kerr said.
“If you take a step back, what we did actually recognise is if you look at the world today, with a lot of the M&A activity that occurred in the prior two decades, most of the mid-tier mining companies had disappeared.
“So part of the advantage of South32 was it’s a mid-tier-sized mining company … and for a mid-tier company, you only need one or two great discoveries or one or two great acquisitions and you can fundamentally change the nature of the group and create a lot of value for your stakeholders.
“It was clear some commodities had a more attractive future than others. We talked about wanting copper and we did talk about expanding our zinc and nickel presence, and those commodities in particular have been far more attractive in a world of decarbonisation.”
South32 chief executive officer Graham Kerr.
Those discussions laid the foundations for South32 as the company transitioned its portfolio and projects to be largely based in the Americas.
The US Government’s recent endorsement of the Hermosa project, located in southern Arizona, has meant South32 could become the country’s primary manganese producer.
Hermosa, which has the potential to produce manganese and zinc, has been added to the FAST-41 project list, which is designed to create better processes for complex critical infrastructure projects. Hermosa is one of the first mining projects to join the program, which could assist it with obtaining federal permits for the development of South32’s Taylor and Clark deposits, both of which are located within the Hermosa project.
According to Kerr, once the Taylor and Clark projects are up and running, South32’s portfolio composition will rise to 85 per cent base metals, with majority of the company’s value in the Americas.
“The inclusion of Hermosa as the first mining project added to the FAST-41 process is an important milestone that recognises the project’s potential to strengthen the domestic supply of critical minerals in the US,” Kerr said. “The project presents a significant opportunity to sustainably produce commodities critical to a low-carbon future.”
South32 is advancing a Clark feasibility study, with a pilot plant recently commencing production. A feasibility study for the Taylor deposit is expected to be completed later this year.
A key part of the project will see South32 engage with local communities to ensure the project has flow-on benefits to the surrounding area.
“Becoming a covered FAST-41 project will make the rigorous federal environmental review and permitting process for this project more transparent, predictable and inclusive for all stakeholders,” South32 Hermosa president Pat Risner said.
“We are committed to working closely with the US Forest Service, cooperating agencies, Native American tribes, and local stakeholders in Santa Cruz County in Arizona to develop this project in a way that benefits the community, minimises impact on the environment, and creates opportunities across the region.”
Alongside its US assets, South32 also has growth options in South America, including a bright future for its Sierra Gorda copper mine in Chile.
South32 purchased a 45 per cent stake in Sierra Gorda in February 2022, but while the company has long been keen to boost its copper presence, it took time to warm up to Sierra Gorda.
“How many people in the room have watched Shrek with their kids before?” Kerr asked the Melbourne Mining Club audience. “There’s a bit where the donkey is talking to Shrek and says, ‘Shrek, you’re like an onion. You’ve got to take the layers off the onion to understand what you’ve actually got’.
“When the business development team first brought Sierra Gorda to me, I was probably like most other people in the market and thought, ‘This is a challenged asset. It’s got a history of having a challenging ramp-up and there’s very little information in the marketplace about it’.
“Every challenge we gave to the business development team to take a layer off that onion, they came back with more positive results.
“In the end, we became convinced that it was the right thing to do.
“We’ve had it for about a year now and we’re really happy with the acquisition. We’ve been really surprised by the upside in the asset and the quality of the people.”
South32’s Hermosa project in southern Arizona.
Alongside its Chile presence, South32 is also involved in earn-in agreements with two emerging copper exploration projects in Argentina – Chita Valley and Don Julio.
South32 recently exercised its earn-in right to acquire a 50.1 per cent interest in the Chita Valley project following a three-year exploration partnership with Minsud Resources Corp.
The major miner signed an earn-in agreement with Sable Resources to explore Don Julio in 2021, with drilling advancing at the project.
Kerr said Argentina could be a copper jurisdiction to keep an eye on in years to come.
“Argentina’s become an interesting location,” he said.
“When we first started doing some work there, we were probably the only ones. You’ve got BHP there, you’ve got Barrick there, you’ve Glencore there – everyone’s sort of pouring money into that jurisdiction at the moment.
“If you look at where it is, it’s on the other side of the Chile mountains where basically all the copper is.
“So I think that’s an area that’s going to develop pretty quickly.”
Whether it’s the Hermosa project in the US, a suite of emerging projects in South America, or any other ‘future-facing’ asset in South32’s portfolio, the company has plenty of avenues to be part of the world’s decarbonisation narrative in the years to come.
And given South32’s strong track record of project execution and expansion, the company’s shareholders can rest assured their stock is in the right place.
South32’s Sierra Gorda copper mine in Chile. Image: South32
ARI was on hand for a recent fireside chat with South32 CEO Graham Kerr, who reflected on how the major mining company has gotten to where it is today.
South32, which was demerged from BHP in 2015, describes itself as a “globally diversified mining and metals company” and is now transitioning to become a key manganese producer in the US.
The company’s future is certainly bright, but chief executive officer Graham Kerr admitted South32 initially had a portfolio that could only be described as a “mixed bag”.
“Within BHP, there are lots of assets that have a lot of opportunity for development in the future that weren’t quite getting the love or systems they needed,” he said during a fireside chat at a recent Melbourne Mining Club luncheon.
“For me, the demerger was a great opportunity for both companies to be better than what they were together. (And) both companies have continued to change and evolve.”
South32’s commodity mix included energy coal, metallurgical coal and manganese, with nickel, lead, silver, zinc and aluminium also featuring in the portfolio.
It was from this position that Kerr and his colleagues set about finding potential in base metals.
Eight years on, the company’s portfolio has changed a lot since Kerr sat in the first South32 meeting with then-chairman David Crawford.
“We certainly had a belief for what assets belonged in South32 and what assets didn’t belong in South32,” Kerr said.
“If you take a step back, what we did actually recognise is if you look at the world today, with a lot of the M&A activity that occurred in the prior two decades, most of the mid-tier mining companies had disappeared.
“So part of the advantage of South32 was it’s a mid-tier-sized mining company … and for a mid-tier company, you only need one or two great discoveries or one or two great acquisitions and you can fundamentally change the nature of the group and create a lot of value for your stakeholders.
“It was clear some commodities had a more attractive future than others. We talked about wanting copper and we did talk about expanding our zinc and nickel presence, and those commodities in particular have been far more attractive in a world of decarbonisation.”
South32 chief executive officer Graham Kerr.
Those discussions laid the foundations for South32 as the company transitioned its portfolio and projects to be largely based in the Americas.
The US Government’s recent endorsement of the Hermosa project, located in southern Arizona, has meant South32 could become the country’s primary manganese producer.
Hermosa, which has the potential to produce manganese and zinc, has been added to the FAST-41 project list, which is designed to create better processes for complex critical infrastructure projects. Hermosa is one of the first mining projects to join the program, which could assist it with obtaining federal permits for the development of South32’s Taylor and Clark deposits, both of which are located within the Hermosa project.
According to Kerr, once the Taylor and Clark projects are up and running, South32’s portfolio composition will rise to 85 per cent base metals, with majority of the company’s value in the Americas.
“The inclusion of Hermosa as the first mining project added to the FAST-41 process is an important milestone that recognises the project’s potential to strengthen the domestic supply of critical minerals in the US,” Kerr said. “The project presents a significant opportunity to sustainably produce commodities critical to a low-carbon future.”
South32 is advancing a Clark feasibility study, with a pilot plant recently commencing production. A feasibility study for the Taylor deposit is expected to be completed later this year.
A key part of the project will see South32 engage with local communities to ensure the project has flow-on benefits to the surrounding area.
“Becoming a covered FAST-41 project will make the rigorous federal environmental review and permitting process for this project more transparent, predictable and inclusive for all stakeholders,” South32 Hermosa president Pat Risner said.
“We are committed to working closely with the US Forest Service, cooperating agencies, Native American tribes, and local stakeholders in Santa Cruz County in Arizona to develop this project in a way that benefits the community, minimises impact on the environment, and creates opportunities across the region.”
Alongside its US assets, South32 also has growth options in South America, including a bright future for its Sierra Gorda copper mine in Chile.
South32 purchased a 45 per cent stake in Sierra Gorda in February 2022, but while the company has long been keen to boost its copper presence, it took time to warm up to Sierra Gorda.
“How many people in the room have watched Shrek with their kids before?” Kerr asked the Melbourne Mining Club audience. “There’s a bit where the donkey is talking to Shrek and says, ‘Shrek, you’re like an onion. You’ve got to take the layers off the onion to understand what you’ve actually got’.
“When the business development team first brought Sierra Gorda to me, I was probably like most other people in the market and thought, ‘This is a challenged asset. It’s got a history of having a challenging ramp-up and there’s very little information in the marketplace about it’.
“Every challenge we gave to the business development team to take a layer off that onion, they came back with more positive results.
“In the end, we became convinced that it was the right thing to do.
“We’ve had it for about a year now and we’re really happy with the acquisition. We’ve been really surprised by the upside in the asset and the quality of the people.”
South32’s Hermosa project in southern Arizona.
Alongside its Chile presence, South32 is also involved in earn-in agreements with two emerging copper exploration projects in Argentina – Chita Valley and Don Julio.
South32 recently exercised its earn-in right to acquire a 50.1 per cent interest in the Chita Valley project following a three-year exploration partnership with Minsud Resources Corp.
The major miner signed an earn-in agreement with Sable Resources to explore Don Julio in 2021, with drilling advancing at the project.
Kerr said Argentina could be a copper jurisdiction to keep an eye on in years to come.
“Argentina’s become an interesting location,” he said.
“When we first started doing some work there, we were probably the only ones. You’ve got BHP there, you’ve got Barrick there, you’ve Glencore there – everyone’s sort of pouring money into that jurisdiction at the moment.
“If you look at where it is, it’s on the other side of the Chile mountains where basically all the copper is.
“So I think that’s an area that’s going to develop pretty quickly.”
Whether it’s the Hermosa project in the US, a suite of emerging projects in South America, or any other ‘future-facing’ asset in South32’s portfolio, the company has plenty of avenues to be part of the world’s decarbonisation narrative in the years to come.
And given South32’s strong track record of project execution and expansion, the company’s shareholders can rest assured their stock is in the right place.
The major miner also revealed annual production records at Western Australian Iron Ore (WAIO), the Olympic Dam operation, and the Spence copper mine in Chile.
This is particularly significant for Olympic Dam, with the historic mine enjoying a new lease on life after overcoming years of operational hurdles.
Olympic Dam produced 212,000 tonnes of copper in the 2022–23 financial year (FY23). This is a 54 per cent increase from FY22 (138,000 tonnes), a year when BHP conducted major smelter maintenance at the mine.
Spence, which forms part of BHP’s Pampa Norte operations in northern Chile, boosted its annual copper production to 240,000 tonnes, supported by increased throughput from the Spence concentrator.
Prominent Hill and Carrapateena produced 8000 tonnes and 12,000 tonnes of copper, respectively, across two months of production since BHP acquired the mines in its acquisition of OZ Minerals.
BHP has grouped Olympic Dam, Prominent Hill and Carrapateena together under the banner ‘Copper South Australia’, and the company hopes to produce between 310,000–340,000 tonnes of copper from the mines in FY24.
Integration activities saw small volumes of copper concentrate from Prominent Hill transported to Olympic Dam for processing.
WAIO continues to fire on all cylinders, producing a record 257 million tonnes of iron ore in FY23 – a 1 per cent increase from FY22.
“WAIO shipped record volumes on the back of productivity in its supply chain, rail network and car dumpers, while South Flank completed its deployment of autonomous haul trucks in May and is on track to ramp up to full production in the next 12 months,” BHP chief executive officer Mike Henry said.
BHP saw average prices for its copper, iron ore and metallurgical coal markets reduce year-on-year in FY23. Nickel prices remained stable, while thermal coal prices were higher, driven by a buoyant first six months.
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It has long been a trusted mining partner of countries across the world, but there is urgency for Australia to expand its downstream options as the world decarbonises.
Any new industry can present a race to the top, with early adopters best placed to capitalise on new market share and gain a competitive advantage.
This is the case in the context of decarbonisation, where more and more countries are recognising the commercial opportunities that come with establishing the net-zero power sources of a cleaner future.
The situation represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity, and Australia is beginning to understand the role it can play in supporting the green transformation.
Having established itself as a mining superpower, Australia is already a key supplier of the materials driving the world’s renewable energy technologies. But the country can be more than the world’s green-energy quarry, with opportunities to look further downstream and establish vertically integrated renewable industries onshore.
One avenue could be to develop a local battery supply chain, something the Future Battery Industries Cooperative Research Centre (FBICRC) sees as a particularly urgent commercial pathway.
“The clean-energy transition is moving faster,” FBICRC chief executive officer Shannon O’Rourke told Australian Mining. “Government spending on clean energy has increased 30 per cent in the past two years.
“Greater subsidies are driving electric vehicle (EV) demand and increasing commodity prices and volumes. In the past 18 months, the opportunity for Australia has doubled.”
FBICRC released a report in March suggesting Australia’s battery opportunity could contribute $16.9 billion to the Australian economy by 2030.
The report, Charging Ahead – Australia’s Battery Powered Future, highlights Australia’s mining and geological upside, particularly in the production and endowment of critical minerals, and how this can support capabilities further downstream.
This not only encompasses battery manufacturing but other segments in the value chain, such as refining and active materials.
“Australia is cost-competitive across the entire value chain,” O’Rourke said. “We are eight per cent cheaper than Indonesia to produce advanced materials and five per cent cheaper than the United States to produce cells.”
Australia also has a significant advantage in refining, with the potential to be the world’s cheapest producer of lithium hydroxide monohydrate (LHM) through upstream integration in the supply chain. This is the result of Australia’s abundant lithium reserves and mining capacity, which creates natural synergies with downstream applications.
Some Australian companies are already harnessing onshore lithium hydroxide opportunities, with Mineral Resources (MinRes) and IGO producing the refined product from their downstream processing facilities in Kemerton and Kwinana, respectively.
The Kemerton plant sources spodumene concentrate – a raw lithium material – from the Greenbushes lithium mine in WA, which is part owned by MinRes’ Kemerton partner, Albemarle Corporation.
IGO’s Kwinana plant, which it owns in partnership with Tianqi Lithium Corporation, also sources spodumene from Greenbushes.
The lithium hydroxide produced from Kemerton and Kwinana is then shipped offshore for further processing before it is upgraded to active materials such as lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) or nickel-cobalt-manganese (NCM) – two key cathode inputs for renewable batteries.
But demand for Australia’s upstream products is not solely coming from overseas, with a growing local renewable energy sector seeking more materials than ever.
“Australia’s local demand is skyrocketing,” O’Rourke said. “Bloomberg reports that Australia has the largest pipeline of energy storage projects behind China, and a recent Sunwiz report shows that Australia’s behind-the-meter battery storage market is up 55 per cent year on year.”
The Australian Government is funding eight large-scale batteries to be built across the country, storing renewable energy and reducing the reliance on fossil-fuel power generation. Project locations extend from Victoria’s Surf Coast all the way up to Queensland’s tropical north.
Building independent capabilities is important, but for Australia to effectively harness its battery opportunity, it needs to tackle the matter holistically.
“Building an ecosystem is like trying to solve the chicken-and-egg problem,” O’Rourke said. “A healthy ecosystem needs multiple suppliers, customers and producers, supported by service companies, a flexible workforce, the research sector and government.
“Building that incrementally could take decades, and no other country is taking that approach. Industrial growth is non-linear and needs to be supported by trade and accelerated by domestic support.
“Australia is in a good position. It has multiple projects either announced or operating across all elements of the value chain including refining, materials, (and) cell and system manufacturing.
“We have a complete value chain today, including cell manufacturers. The challenge is building out more capacity and scaling up.”
FBICRC believes Australia can be competitive all the way from refining to manufacturing, but the country must find its sweet spot.
“We do not need to match China’s scale; rather we need to achieve minimum economic scale,” O’Rourke said. “Our minerals strength, our secure supply and our ESG (environmental, social and governance) credentials help sharpen our competitive edge.
“Australia has two cell manufacturing projects which meet this minimum scale: Recharge Industries’ 30-gigawatt-hour-per-annum project in Avalon (Victoria) and Energy Renaissance 5.3-gigawatt-hour-per-annum project in Tomago (New South Wales).
“The NRF (National Reconstruction Fund) and other support mechanisms can help Australia’s lighthouse projects get to scale and develop their supporting industries to build a competitive ecosystem.”
The Australian Government introduced the NRF in October 2022, contributing $15 billion to transform several future-facing industries, including renewable energy and downstream opportunities within the resources sector.
Federal support has also been flowing via the Critical Minerals Development Program, which recently provided close to $50 million in grants for emerging upstream and downstream projects.
This included $6.5 million of funding for Australian Strategic Materials’ Dubbo rare earths project in NSW, $4.7 million for International Graphite’s ‘mine-to-market’ graphite strategy in WA, and $4.6 million for IGO’s integrated precursor cathode active material (pCAM) facility in WA.
IGO is developing its downstream project in partnership with Andrew Forrest-backed Wyloo Metals, demonstrating the power of collaboration in Australia’s downstream ventures.
Collaboration is also a key part of FBICRC’s work and underpins its own pilot plant, is exploring the local production of NCM cathode materials.
“There is a strong collaborative spirit supporting our cathode precursor production pilot plant facility, where we are currently manufacturing high performance materials to world standard,” O’Rourke said.
“Four universities and 18 other businesses have come together to build and demonstrate an Australian manufacturing capability.”
Key mining industry players such as BHP, Allkem, IGO, Cobalt Blue, Lycopodium and BASF have come together with FBICRC to further Australia’s understanding of the active materials industry.
Australia’s battery opportunity is there for all to see, and there are enough developments to suggest that an integrated supply chain could be established.
But for it to happen, Australia must be firing on all cylinders, with stakeholders right across the battery supply chain working together to make this dream a reality.
Rio Tinto has lofty copper ambitions in the years to come, with hopes to account for 25 per cent of growth volumes in global copper supply in the next five years.
The major miner held an investor site visit at the Oyu Tolgoi operation in Mongolia this week, where it detailed its copper aspirations and provided an update on Oyu Tolgoi’s production ramp-up.
Rio Tinto said Oyu Tolgoi was on track to reach 500,000 tonnes of annual copper production by 2028, which would coincide with a boost in head grade to about 1.25 per cent copper.
This would be done by unlocking various deposits such as the Oyut open pit (ore reserves: 702 million tonnes at 0.44 per cent copper), Hugo North (ore reserves: 447 million tonnes at 1.55 per cent copper) and Hugo South (inferred resources: 731 million tonnes at 0.83 per cent copper).
The company produced 28,100 tonnes of copper from Oyu Tolgoi in the first quarter of 2023 at a head grade of 0.49 per cent.
Rio said as it uplifts Oyu Tolgoi and its Kennecott copper mine in the US, and benefits from its interest in the Escondida operation and the emerging Resolution and La Granja projects, the company is targeting one million tonnes of annual copper production within five years.
This will be further supported by other US advancements, including the growth of Rio Tinto’s Nuton project which looks to boost copper recoveries from 25–35 per cent (from traditional heap leach) to at least 80 per cent.
Nuton not only has the potential to unlock copper sulphide resources but also copper-bearing waste and tailings, all the while achieving increased recoveries on oxide and transitional material.
This has the potential to deliver improved environmental performance by reducing water usage and carbon emissions, while also giving old mine sites a second life through the reprocessing of mine waste.
Rio Tinto said the US has jurisdictional advantages, with a growing local electric vehicle (EV) market boosting copper demand projections.
Rio acquired a majority interest in Oyu Tolgoi (66 per cent) when it bought out Turquoise Hill Resources at the end of last year. The Government of Mongolia owns the balance.
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This magnetic separator is installed at a rock crushing plant – check out what this magnet is extracting.
These chunky contaminants can damage parts of machinery, which are costly to repair. Not only do these magnets prevent the damage, they also play an important role in improving product purity.
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