Ramelius Resources has provided an exploration update on its Penny mine and other exploration projects within its portfolio of gold assets in Western Australia.
The Penny gold mine is located approximately 150 kilometres south-east of the Mt Magnet operations and 550 kilometres north-east of Perth in WA.
Ramelius has reported that the Penny gold mine received its final ore haulage approvals on May 11, and its haulage schedule is in place to clear site stockpile by June 30. The operation has seen underground diamond drilling commence with visible gold seen in core outside southern boundary of Penny North’s mine plan.
Ramelius’ Bartus East site also saw diamond drilling continuing with results from shallow-angle holes including 60 metres at 7.82 grams per tonne (g/t) Au from 448 metres, with an estimated true width of approximately 45 metres.
The Mt Finnerty joint venture (JV) Ramelius shares with Westar Resources saw ongoing surface diamond drilling yielding recorded an excellent follow-up result of 8.70 metres at 13.4g/t Au from 173.5 metres.
Adjacent to the previously reported 13 metres at 4.37g/t Au and eight metres at 4.87g/t Au, Ramelius said further drilling is planned at the JV once structural interpretation is confirmed.
Ramelius managing director Mark Zeptner said the progress made on its various gold projects was satisfying.
“It is pleasing to have finally obtained the full ore haulage approvals for our high-grade Penny mine, which should see us clear the site stockpiles and mine production, in what promises to be our best Quarter for the financial year,” Zeptner said.
“In addition, our exploration and resource development teams continue to hit high grade material at Bartus East, which confirms similar wide, high-grade intercepts to those received late last year.
“Our Mt Finnerty JV with Westar Resources is also looking more and more interesting with additional high-grade hits and the geologists beginning to understand the controls to the mineralisation.”
With the Newmont takeover of Australian gold miner Newcrest now given the green light by the board, Australia’s gold landscape is set to change forever.
Newcrest has a strong portfolio of assets which the US gold giant is evidently keen to get its hands on, such as the Brucejack gold and silver mine in Canada, the Lihir gold mine in PNG, Cadia Hill in NSW, and the Telfer mine in WA – both among Australia’s largest gold mining operations.
Newmont already owns the Boddington mine in WA and the Tanami mine in the NT, so the takeover will put the company in control of four out of six of Australia’s largest gold mines.
But industry experts from the Australian Financial Review (AFR) are speculating that not all of Newcrest’s assets will make the cut, and will be divested before the dust settles.
Newmont chief executive officer Tom Palmer told AFR that he considers only two of Newcrest’s assets “tier one”, which are Cadia Hill and Lihir.
“Those assets are tier one, world-class by any measure. So, they are firmly in the portfolio,” he told AFR.
When the ink dries, this will give Newmont a portfolio of ten tier one assets.
Palmer also showed a keen interest in Newcrest’s Canadian assets, Brucejack and Red Chris, which are located nearby its own Saddle North project. Palmer called this combination of gold assets a “golden triangle”.
“I would call the golden triangle a tier one district,” he said.
That’s not to say that all everything else faces divestment, but it seems that Newmont will be considering its new assets very carefully.
“We are certainly looking for value over volume,” he said.
“So as we work our way through understanding the portfolio, we will be making judgements about what our go-forward portfolio is.”
Newcrest’s Cadia Hill is the second largest gold mine in the country.
“In the early 2000s, the control of the Australian gold industry stood at 80 per cent,” Surbiton managing director Sandra Close said.
“It dropped to just under 30 per cent Australian control as overseas gold companies bought up Australian operations, and it was when the Aussie dollar was down around 50 (US) cents, so it was pretty cheap for them to buy the operations.
“Over time a lot of those operations were sold, so we’re currently looking at 60 per cent Australian control in the gold industry.
“But the recent announcement with Newmont and Newcrest, and we’ll be watching that closely, if that did go ahead it would mean Australian control would fall just below 50 per cent again.
“Whether we’d see yet another round of acquisitions as we did in the early 2000s is a pretty interesting question.”
The spot price of gold is currently trading at US$2015.60 per ounce.
The Carrapateena operation in South Australia. Image: OZ Minerals
BHP has shed more light on its plans for South Australia after recently acquiring OZ Minerals and its Prominent Hill and Carrapateena copper mines.
“Globally, BHP has the largest copper endowment of any company, based on ownership interest,” BHP chief operating officer Edgar Basto said at the 2023 Austmine Conference.
“In South Australia we have Olympic Dam, which is one of the world’s most significant deposits of copper, gold, silver and uranium. Olympic Dam is a fully integrated processing facility from ore to metal.
“We also added to our copper assets in SA with the acquisition of OZ Minerals, bringing their mines at Carrapateena and Prominent Hill into our portfolio.”
Basto also highlighted BHP’s Oak Dam copper project in SA, where the company was recently given the green light to commence its next phase of exploration.
“Oak Dam is an exciting prospect and potential growth option,” he said. “We’re undertaking further exploration to better define the resource and inform our future planning.
“Anyone who is familiar with the geography of the Gawler Craton will at once see the opportunity that all of this presents.”
Basto said it is important to not look at these mines and projects individually but rather synergetically, with the potential to “build a copper province that could put SA on the global copper map”.
Basto will oversee the integration of Prominent Hill and Carrapateena into BHP’s portfolio, through which he has three core objectives.
“Firstly, (I’m focused on) delivering safe and reliable operations at Olympic Dam, Prominent Hill and Carrapateena,” he said.
“Secondly, (I’m focused on) integrating the BHP and OZ Minerals businesses with a focus on people and culture. And thirdly, (on) developing options to build a copper province here in South Australia.”
Basto said for South Australia to realise its copper opportunity, collaboration is needed between the local mining industry and state and federal governments to support policy choices and investments that can enable South Australia to compete on the global marketplace.
“Let me provide some global perspective,” Basto said. “According to Geoscience Australia, Australia is ranked number two in the world for copper resources but number eight in the world for mined copper production.
“Last year, BHP produced more than 1.5 million tonnes of copper globally.
“This year, we expect to produce around 200 thousand tonnes from Olympic Dam. And around 115 thousand tonnes from Carrapateena and Prominent Hill.
“Here in South Australia, we have nearly 70 per cent of Australia’s copper resources but we produce just under 30 per cent of Australia’s mined copper production.
“The Gawler Craton has huge un-tapped potential… just imagine for a moment that we can develop a mining hub centred around a smelter that brings even more of SA’s high quality copper to global customers.”
BHP is putting plenty of eggs in the South Australia basket, with a committed vision to maximise the state’s copper future.
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The Astec GT2612V high-frequency screen has assisted a nickel miner in New Caledonia in re-processing nickel waste.
Astec and mining contractor Salmon NC have developed a bespoke waste retreatment screening solution for a major nickel miner in New Caledonia. And Astec’s screening offerings don’t stop there.
As we near a net-zero reality, there is an increasing need for more materials to develop the necessary green technologies.
Renewable energy sources such as wind and solar require up to five times more copper than comparable non-renewable technologies, while the World Economic Forum believes demand for lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) could surpass three million tonnes by 2030. The world produced 540,000 tonnes of LCE in 2021.
LCE, derived from lithium raw material, spodumene concentrate, is a critical material in renewable batteries used in electric vehicles (EVs).
While primary production will remain key, as mineral demand increases into the future amid growing decarbonisation, mining companies will need to be more creative in how they commercialise their material.
A nickel mine in New Caledonia, some 1200km east of Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, is doing just that.
SLN (Société Le Nickel), which operates a nickel smelter and several mines on the island, has established a unique method for recycling nickel slag – a major by-product of the nickel refining process – with the assistance of mining contractor Salmon NC and leading mining equipment supplier Astec.
The recycled nickel slag is sold into a variety of markets, including the abrasives industry in the US, where it is used as a sandblasting medium.
While heavy equipment hire has always been Salmon NC’s bread and butter, chief executive officer Chris Salmon turned to Astec when it came to finding the specialty equipment needed to re-process nickel slag.
“I’d known Astec from a past life when I was involved in basalt quarrying, and they’ve always come really well referenced,” Salmon told Australian Mining. “I’d reached out to some industry contacts explaining what I was trying to achieve and Astec’s high-frequency screens were mentioned a couple of times by people I trusted.”
Salmon got in touch with Shaun Quinn, Astec’s senior account manager, materials solutions – northern region, and before too long an Astec GT2612V high-frequency screen had made its way to New Caledonia.
“Shaun was very helpful in identifying the type of unit we wanted,” Salmon said. “We were looking at fixed and tracked solutions, but we chose the tracked machine because we needed mobility around how we were building our stockpiles.
“We’ve been impressed by Astec’s after-sales support, too. We need that support given we’re quite isolated in New Caledonia.”
The Astec GT2612V high-frequency screen has 10 vibrators that directly-induce vibration into the bed of material at between 3600–4200 revolutions per minute (RPM), to ensure increased probability of stratification and material separation.
A unique media rotary tensioning system used on the high-frequency screens means operators of the GT2612V can quickly and efficiently change screen media when switching between applications, supporting a more efficient and productive operation.
And while the GT2612V is powerful, it’s also versatile.
“The screen itself is made up of four six-by-six-foot panels, with the first panels on each deck having three independently adjustable vibrators,” Quinn told Australian Mining.
“The screen operates between 28–43° of inclination, with the vibrators running at up to 4200RPM with as much as 2mm of stroke, so you can ensure they are optimised for each application.
“On average, these machines can induce around 10g of force into the material if you’re running them flat out, but you can also de-tune individual sections accordingly to stop ‘pop-corning’, or the bouncing of the raw material, from occurring.”
The GT2612V was delivered and commissioned to New Caledonia in November 2022 and has been processing large volumes of material ever since.
The process involves feeding stockpiled nickel slag through a static grid to remove larger agglomerates before it reaches the high-frequency screen, which then refines the product into a usable material.
“Minus-50mm material is sent to the high-frequency screen, which separates anything bigger than 4mm,” Quinn said. “Anything smaller is finished product in this application.”
The GT2612V’s adjustability came in handy when the Salmon NC team discovered the nickel slag material was more abrasive than anticipated.
“This briefly caused some operational issues for us,” Salmon said.
“But the Astec support team was fantastic. They helped us make tweaks and adjustments to settings and flow rates, and alter the way we were processing the material to best deal with its abrasive nature.
“Now we’re getting the best out of the machine itself, and the best operational efficiency.”
Since the six-foot-wide GT2612V arrived in New Caledonia in November 2022, Astec has developed a larger eight-foot-wide, 18-foot-long high-frequency screen. Quinn said the new model, launched at CONEXPO in Las Vegas in mid-March, enables greater capacity.
But when finding the right screen for a customer and for a particular application, bigger is not necessarily better.
“It comes down to what customers are looking for,” Quinn said. “If they don’t have room to set up a fixed plant, and if they want something that’s mobile and able to be utilised in a tighter, confined space – as with Salmon NC and the nickel slag application – the tracked screen is ideal.
“But if you’ve got a bit more room, and you’re going to go down the path of investing in a fixed plant, Astec’s new eight-foot-wide screen is going to be something to consider.
Astec’s high-frequency screens will be increasingly important as mineral demand increases amid growing decarbonisation.
“The bottom line is the technology works and, with its multiple tuning options, we will ensure screens are optimised to suit any application and material.”
Quinn said that just a few weeks on from CONEXPO, Astec had already sold two of the eight-foot-wide screens into the local market.
Astec can also build a ‘hybrid machine’ for its customers.
“The offshoot of these machines is our multi-frequency screen,” Quinn said.
“These incorporate a conventional screening action throughout the whole screen but also utilise our high-frequency technology on the bottom deck.
“The high-frequency action provides additional vibration directly into the media on the bottom deck which helps with separation in finer material or wetter applications.“
Whether it’s the GT2612V, the new eight-foot-wide screen, the multi-frequency option, or any other bespoke screening solution, Astec has a solution to suit any mineral processing application. Astec’s screens are proven in repurposing mine waste for a major nickel miner in New Caledonia, and many other Australian mining companies and contractors can attest to the supplier’s capability.
International Graphite’s Springdale graphite project in WA.
Renascor Resources, International Graphite and Quantum Graphite are three ASX-listed companies driving the emerging graphite industry in Australia. We take a closer look at their attributes.
One of the key raw materials in the green energy transition is graphite, but while Australia is a key producer of other battery metals such as lithium, nickel and manganese, there are no active Australian graphite mining operations.
Graphite is used as an input for anodes – one of two electrodes that make up a lithium-ion battery, with cathodes – made up of metals such as lithium, nickel and cobalt – the other electrode.
According to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, demand for anodes grew by 46 per cent in 2022, while supply of flake graphite – the most geologically common form of natural graphite – enjoyed 14 per cent growth last year.
This created a supply–demand imbalance, with Benchmark observing a 25 per cent rise in the price for -100 mesh flake graphite.
The lithium-ion battery anode market also became flake graphite’s biggest end user in 2022, running ahead of traditional applications in foundry and refractory industries.
And the good news doesn’t stop there, with more incentives emerging for future graphite producers.
“Rising prices on strong anode demand are expected to incentivise new supply in 2023, where four new mines are anticipated to join the flake graphite market,” Benchmark senior analyst George Miller said.
“Alongside expansions at current mines in both China and Africa, supply is set to grow by around 15 per cent.”
Miller said the -100 mesh graphite market, the preferred mesh size for anode manufacturing, is set to experience a deficit in 2023, which might see advancements in the types of anode feedstock.
“This might include milling of larger mesh sizes to suit the battery market or the use of different mesh sizes to stymie a supply deficit,” he said. “Sustaining a raw material shortage in the natural graphite anode value chain risks curtailing natural graphite anode market share.”
Several Australian companies are looking to ignite the local graphite industry. Some are not only focused on producing raw materials, but also developing a downstream offering as well. Australian Resources & Investment profiles three of those companies.
Renascor Resources’ Siviour graphite project is located on the Eyre Peninsula, South Australia.
Renascor Resources
With a market capitalisation of more than $500 million, Renascor Resources is the highest profile Australian-focused graphite company on the ASX. This is due to the significance of its vertically integrated Siviour battery anode material (BAM) project in South Australia, which comprises a proposed mine and concentrator near Arno Bay on the Eyre Peninsula and a planned downstream purified spherical graphite (PSG) facility in Port Adelaide.
The Siviour mine area is massive, holding the world’s second largest proven graphite reserve and the largest graphite reserve outside of Africa. This could support a mining operation for 40 years.
Siviour received Program for Environment Protection and Rehabilitation (PEPR) approval in November 2022 – the second step in a two-step assessment process from the South Australian Government.
The PEPR approval enables Renascor to process up to 1.65 million tonnes of ore per annum, allowing the production of 150,000 tonnes of graphite concentrates per annum.
Renascor has the backing of the Australian Government through a $185 million loan facility, while the company was also successful in raising $70 million through an institutional placement in December 2022. This was priced at $0.275 per share.
Renascor managing director David Christensen said upstream development would be the company’s initial focus, as that’s where he sees market demand.
“The gap in (graphite) material right now is really on the upstream and that’s largely because the customer base has grown significantly on the anode side and on the midstream processing side to feed battery companies, but the mines haven’t caught up,” he told Australian Resources & Investment.
Once flake graphite concentrates are produced from Renascor’s Siviour open-pit mine and processing plant on the Eyre Peninsula, further processing at the Port Adelaide facility would deliver a midstream PSG product to support battery anode manufacturing.
Christensen provided further analysis of current graphite dynamics.
“If we see where we are with graphite right now, China produces two thirds of the world’s graphite but processes 100 per cent of the graphite that goes into anodes and then produces about 90 per cent of the anodes,” Christensen said.
“And they’ve really built up their processing capacity, both on the midstream … and on the anode side, and for that matter on the battery and the EV (electric vehicle) side as well.
“There may be even overcapacity there, but there’s undercapacity certainly in China on the flake graphite, so China has now become a net importer of flake graphite, and that’s really what’s causing the increase in the price. The reason they’re a net importer is because they need to feed the lithium-ion battery sector.”
Given its bright future as a battery anode material, Christensen compared graphite’s prospects to another battery metal key to the EV sector.
“What we tell people is graphite is the next lithium, and the more people that figure it out the better because I think we’re going to see not just our prices, but a number of prices go up relatively quickly fuelled from the supply gap,” he said.
“So it’s a great opportunity and I think there’s a lot of ASX companies who look like they have some pretty exciting resources.”
Renascor managing director David Christensen with a graphite slide.
International Graphite
Founded in 2018, ASX-listed International Graphite was built on the premise that the graphite industry would need more downstream processing capacity outside of China as the demand for battery anode materials increased.
The company is developing a mine-to-market business model, whereby raw materials would be mined from the Springdale graphite project in WA and fed into a downstream processing plant in the emerging renewable energy hub of Collie.
International Graphite successfully commissioned its micronising facility in September 2022, which the company believes is the most advanced known pilot-scale graphite micronising and spheroidising plant to be installed and operated in Australia.
Micronising is the critical first step in the downstream processing of battery anode materials.
“What micronising does is essentially takes a fine concentrate, which might be 100–150 microns in size, somewhere in that order, and essentially grinds it down to a 20-micron size,” International Graphite managing director and chief executive officer Andrew Worland told Australian Resources & Investment.
“Generally speaking, somewhere in the vicinity of 20 microns is what’s needed to progress a micronised graphite product through the battery anode process. You then spheroidise the micronised graphite and purify it, which involves taking a concentrate grade, let’s say 95 per cent, up to battery grade of 99.95 per cent.
“The final step is coating, and then you have a high-value product which is available for battery manufacturers.”
International Graphite’s Collie facility will also act as a centre for research and development (R&D) to explore the possibility of producing a finished battery anode material product.
The company acquired the Springdale project from Comet Resources in April 2022, with Comet seeing the value in International Graphite’s downstream potential. This was also reflective of broader investor sentiment.
“Where the industry was moving to more broadly from an investor perspective, was the value of a company was not being reflected in the mining assets but being reflected in the extent to which companies had explored downstream processing of their own materials,” Worland said.
“So Comet formed the view that merging the asset (Springdale) with our downstream processing IP (intellectual property) would yield a very nice consolidated business entity that was all held in Western Australia and offered the benefits of ESG (environmental, social and governance) to the global marketplace. That was the basis of listing in April 2022.”
International Graphite commenced trading on the ASX following a $10 million initial public offering (IPO), and within a month the company had unveiled a larger graphite R&D facility in Collie and announced a new memorandum of understanding (MoU) with ZEN Energy to explore renewable energy options for its downstream facilities.
Drilling saw International Graphite identify several high-grade discoveries at Springdale throughout 2022, including Springdale Central and Springdale South.
In October 2022, the company finalised a $2 million financial assistance agreement with the WA Government to support the development of its Collie downstream facilities.
Worland said International Graphite could potentially commence importing concentrate before its Springdale project comes online.
“We can get that (our micronising plant) started on imported concentrates, and it may be, in time, a facility that we use to divert some Springdale material to as well,” he said.
“We’ll use that micronising facility to develop a customer base and generate cash flow into the company in 2024, before the feasibility study for Springdale and the feasibility studies for the battery anode material plant in Collie have been developed and completed.”
International Graphite’s strategy doesn’t stop there, with the company taking a holistic view at its development to find the best pathway forward.
“One of the challenges that all development-stage resource companies have in looking to get downstream is the timing to market,” Worland said. “This is certainly the case within the graphite industry.
“It takes a lot of integration of facilities and of course there’s a qualification process which is reasonably unique to graphite from a battery anode perspective that all companies need to go through. This does delay your market entry point.
“What we think is a very nice way to bridge that market entry is through establishing this micronising facility, which will be profitable very quickly. This will generate cash flow for the business that will help develop the feasibility work that we need to complete for Springdale and Collie.
“Just as important as cash flow is the market intelligence in customer networking. It’s the experience in sales and logistics that is something that doesn’t sit within any development-stage companies at this point in time. It’s a skill set that we’ll have through operations that others won’t.”
Graphite has a bright future as a key ingredient in lithium-ion batteries.
Quantum Graphite
The Uley mine in South Australia was the sole Australian graphite producer when it was up and running between 2014–15. Uley was placed on care and maintenance in December 2015 by Valence Industries, before the company was rebranded as Quantum Graphite in July 2017.
Quantum Graphite is advancing Uley to a restart – as Uley 2 – where it aims to produce 55,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) of flake graphite from its processing plant. This would be generated from 500,000tpa of feed. The expected mine life is 12 years.
The company has been undertaking significant site works at Uley 2 before installation of the new processing plant commences, which involved remediation of the Uley legacy plant.
Recent achievements for Quantum Graphite include the renewal of its Mikkira exploration licence until October 2027. Mikkira covers much of the southern tip of the Eyre Peninsula and includes Uley 2, as well as other prospects such as Salt Lake, Homestead, Kacey and Fishery.
In November 2022, Quantum Graphite announced the successful completion of an energy storage project undertaken at INEMET in Freiburg, Germany. This involved testing and measuring the thermal performance of QSP’s flake graphite-based storage media under the same temperatures of the long-duration energy storage (LDES) battery developed by Sunlands Co.
QSP is a joint venture between Quantum Graphite and Sunlands Co. focused on the manufacture of flake graphite-based thermal storage media, with the flake to be exclusively sourced from Uley 2.
Thermal storage uses heat to store energy for later use, which offers a renewable source of energy and potentially reduces the reliance on fossil fuels for energy generation.
Quantum Graphite non-executive director David Trimboli said the findings from the INEMET test work program were significant.
“These results now settle the scope of QSP’s manufacturing of Uley media blocks,” he said. “The big news is the uniformity in the heat storage results. This enables QSP to achieve efficiencies of scale in the size and type of Uley media blocks regardless of the configurations required by Sunlands Co. for its various LDES cells.
“Operationally the capability to utilise all the Uley 2 flake product range hands QSP significant operational control over the procurement process (eg timing, general market conditions etcetera) of Uley 2 flake inventory.”
Quantum Graphite launched a takeover bid for graphite explorer Lincoln Minerals in August 2022, which was still active at the time this article was published online, with the takeover offer open until May 15.
In a letter to its shareholders in late February, Lincoln Minerals said Quantum Graphite’s offer remained unsatisfactory, while highlighting its own attributes where it is fully funded for 2023 exploration.
Drilling at the Koppio graphite project and Kookaburra Gully graphite deposit was set to commence in March.
BHP is now officially the parent company of OZ Minerals, with OZ set to be removed from the ASX today.
“This acquisition strengthens BHP’s portfolio in copper and nickel and is in line with our strategy to meet increasing demand for the critical minerals needed for electric vehicles, wind turbines and solar panels to support the energy transition,” BHP chief executive officer Mike Henry said.
“Combining our two organisations will provide options for growth, bring new talent and innovation to unlock these resources in a sustainable way, and deliver value to shareholders and communities.”
The takeover will allow BHP to focus on safe and reliable operation of the Olympic Dam, Prominent Hill and Carrapateena assets.
This week OZ shareholders received $28.25 per OZ share, marking the implementation of the scheme of arrangement. This follows approval of the $9.63 billion deal by the Federal Court earlier this month.
The revised offer was an increase on the original $8.4 billion offer made in August 2022.
OZ Minerals has a number of operations in Brazil, including the Santa Lúcia iron oxide copper-gold mineral deposit, the Antas copper-gold mine, and CentroGold, one of the largest undeveloped gold projects in Brazil.
The acquisition gives BHP access to the company’s significant portfolio of future-facing minerals – namely copper and nickel – that are vital to the world’s push for clean energy.
“As this is the final production report from OZ Minerals, the board and management would like to thank all our stakeholders for their contribution to the company’s success,” OZ Minerals chief executive officer Andrew Cole said.
After 20 years and 20 million work hours, Fortescue Metals reports its first magnetite production at its Iron Bridge mine in WA, which measured an impressive grade of over 68 per cent iron.
“Within a week of starting operation, Iron Bridge hit grade and that was the biggest relief of my career,” Fortescue executive chairman, Dr Andrew Forrest, told AFR.
The wet concentrate has been transported from the mine through 135km slurry pipeline to Port Hedland. There it will be dewatered, transforming it into a high-grade magnetite product ready for shipping.
The mine will produce 22 million tonnes per annum of high-grade magnetite concentrate, suitable for steel making.
Using magnetite in steel making has a lower overall carbon emissions than alternatives.
“Iron Bridge will lead the way for a successful magnetite industry in Western Australia and is a game changer for not only Fortescue, but the wider iron ore industry,” Forrest said.
The Iron Bridge project created over 20,000 jobs during construction, a workforce figure which peaked at 4,000. Another 900 full time jobs will be created when the project begins operations.
“I would like to congratulate every one of the 20,000 people who worked on achieving the most remarkable safety record during the construction of this incredibly complex project,” Forrest said.
Fortescue chief executive officer Fiona Hick said she was proud that the team was able to deliver the project while maintaining strong safety performance.
“The construction of Iron Bridge, Fortescue’s first magnetite operation, was complex particularly while managing the added challenges resulting from COVID-19 and border closures,” she said.
“Our focus is now on achieving safe and efficient ramp up.
Rio Tinto’s Gudai-Darri mine in Western Australia.
Established in 1873, Rio Tinto has become the world’s second-largest mining company, and chief executive Jakob Stausholm recently took time to reflect on the group’s legacy.
Rio Tinto was founded when a group of investors purchased a mine complex on the Rio Tinto river in south-western Spain. Within 10 years, Rio was the largest copper producer in the world.
“The Rio Tinto copper deposits have been mined on and off for more than 5000 years,” Stausholm said at the company’s annual general meeting (AGM) last week.
“Many civilisations, from the Phoenicians to the Romans, were drawn to Spain by the wealth of those mines. However, by the time the Romans left it was thought that the accessible deposits had been exhausted, and the site was largely abandoned.
“The mines were reopened in the 19th century by a Spanish king who was desperate for cash, but they were badly run and losing money. When the king eventually lost his throne, the new government decided to sell the mine.
“Buying a loss-making mine with a depleted resource in a country recovering from civil war was seen as mad at the time. But a group of investors in London saw an opportunity. And on 29 March 1873, they formed the Rio Tinto company to purchase and develop the mine.”
Stausholm said the investors introduced modern mining techniques, equipment and infrastructure to turn a “run-down operation” into one of Europe’s most profitable mines.
“New technology allowed them (the investors) to extract copper from what others had dismissed as waste,” he said. “And within 10 years, the Rio Tinto company was the largest copper producer in the world.
“This story illustrates the importance of vision, and the potential for innovation to transform entire industries. The ability to recognise potential, use innovation and achieve success has been key to Rio Tinto over 150 years.”
Stausholm said the company’s initial vision is still apparent in the Rio Tinto of today, where there is one overarching purpose: Finding better ways to provide the materials the world needs.
“Our purpose speaks to our drive for innovation, continuous improvement and impeccable ESG (environmental, social and governance) performance, and connects our contribution to everyday life, our customers, the communities where we operate, and society at large,” he said.
Stausholm highlighted Rio Tinto’s Safe Production System (SPS) as a key driver of company innovation and performance. SPS aims to unlock the potential of Rio’s employees, their skills and expertise to create stable, predictable operations.
“I’ve been impressed by our progress in 2022, achieving a number of operational records, including a record second half performance across the Pilbara iron ore mine and rail system,” he said.
“We now have 30 deployments at 16 sites and 86 Kaizens, which are rapid problem-solving activities, completed or in progress.
“Where we have been deploying the SPS, we have sites that are safer, more engaged employees, and assets that are more productive. We will continue to deploy the SPS to more sites in 2023.”
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