Metso has signed a deal with Codelco to aid the transformation of the enormous Chuquicamata mine in Chile from open cut to underground. The Chuquicamata mine, located 1,650 km north of Santiago, Chile, is owned and operated by Chile’s National Copper Corporation, Codelco.

The scope of the contract includes the engineering, supply of equipment and materials, and site assistance for 12 underground crusher stations combined with a conveyor package. The delivery contains 11 new units of Metso’s largest C200 jaw crushers, 24 push feeders and 20 conveyors.

“Overall, the contract constitutes one of the most sizeable crusher orders ever for Metso’s mining business,” Metso said.

A valuation of the deal has not been released.

The project will begin this year and run until 2020.

According to the company, “Metso offered an integrated solution that carried through from engineering, crusher stations, and material handling to electrification, automation, and site assistance. In addition, the energy savings from the company’s Energy Saving Idler (ESI) conveyor technology gave the Metso offering a competitive edge.”

The mine itself is forecast to provide 10 per cent of the world’s copper, and announced plans to move underground in 2012, after it reached a point where trucks had to drive 11 kilometres to reach the surface from the bottom of the pit – all the while hauling lower grade ores.

According to Coldeco, Chuquicamata still has the ability to produce around 308,000 tonnes of copper annually.

It has already started digging more than 1000 kilometres, sinking US3.8 billion into the development.

The mine will also replace its trucks with an in-pit crushing and conveying system.

Mining has been known to take place at the site in one form or another since 550AD.

It is the second deepest mine in the world, after Bingham Canyon, in the U.S.

To see images of the mine’s move underground, click here.

Evolution has agreed to sell the Pajingo gold mine to Chinese company Minjar Gold for $52 million.

The sale includes the surrounding exploration tenements, and consists of a $42 million up-front cash payment and a one per cent net smelter return royalty up to $10 million for gold production above 130,000 ounces.

“Evolution has grown significantly in the past 18 months and it now makes strategic sense for the asset to be operated by an emerging gold producer that can provide the right level of focus on further extending the mine’s operating life,” Evolution executive chairman Jake Klein said.

The sale is unconditional.

Evolution first announced its inclination to divest Pajingo last week, at the time stating, “Evolution has consistently stated that a key object of its business strategy is to improve the quality of its asset portfolio over time.”

“This includes continuously evaluating a wide range of acquisition and divestment opportunities that Evolution believes are in the best interests of shareholders. A sale of Pajingo gold mine would be consistent with this strategy.”

Evolution will book a loss of $77.3 million on the sale, based on the carrying value of the asset.

The sale will close on 1 September.

Following the announcement of the sale, Klein thanked the team at Pajingo, adding it “had made a very important contribution to our business over the last six years”.

As a result of the sale, Evolution has cut its production guidance from 800,000-860,000 ounces of gold down to 745,000-800,000 ounces at an all in sustaining cost of $970-$1030 per ounce.

RCR Tomlinson (http://www.rcrtom.com.au/) has been awarded a contract to provide materials handling systems at Rio Tinto’s Silvergrass mine.

The contract, valued at $120 million, sees RCR provide a crusher and conveyor systems.

It includes the engineering, procurement, and construction of a new primary crusher, nine kilometres of overland conveyors, and associated 33kV power lines at Silvergrass East.

Construction will begin on site in the fourth quarter, after Rio Tinto gain’s the necessary governmental approvals.

“This contract awards demonstrates that RCR is certainly leading the iron ore processing industry and is a result of our innovative approach to cost competitive solutions,” RCR CEO Paul Dalgleish said.

“Our design was innovative and provides Rio Tinto with a solution that uses capital efficiently.”

THE proposed sale of Terex’s Material Handling and Port Solutions (MHPS) business to Konecranes has just cleared two major hurdles, with sales completion still expected to occur in early 2017.

The deal, worth US$820 million ($1.12 billion) to Terex along with 19.6 million Konecranes shares, has now been given approval by the European Commission should Konecranes divest its Stahl CraneSystems business.

While Konecranes has said it will start this split immediately, the US Department of Justice has granted Terex early termination of the Hart-Scott-Rodino premerger waiting period. This is part of the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act, which governs notification of larger mergers and acquisitions along with the following wait for government review.Terex CEO John Garrison the clearances by the European Commission and the US Department of Justice were “an important step towards the completion of the planned divestiture of our MHPS segment”.Earlier, Konecranes signed EUR$1.5 billion ($2.18 billion) in unsecured financingfacilities to fund the acquisition of Terex’s MHPS business.

Lycopodium has been awarded a $68.5 million EPC processing plant contract from Toro Gold.

The contract sees Lycopodium provide EPC services for a processing plant and other facilities at Toro’s Mako gold project in Senegal.

The win is a continuation of the company’s work with Toro, following the completion of its work on the pre-feasibility and definitive feasibility studies for the project.

TEREX has made second quarter revenue of US$109.6 million ($145.44 million), reflecting what company CEO John Garrison is calling “a company in transition”.

Overall, Terex’s net sales for the quarter ending 30 June was US$1.298 billion ($1.720 billion), down about 10% from the same time last year. Garrison said Terex “continued to face challenging markets in the second quarter”.

“The North American market for many of our AWP andCranes products was lower than last year, as expected, which was reflected in both our sales and orders in the quarter,” he explained. “We grew AWP sales in Europe and parts of Asia, but not enough to offset the softness in North America. Our Materials Processing segment executed well and improved upon last year’s performance.”He said Terex will “remain focused on what we can control”.“The steps we took earlier in the year to reduce [selling, general, and administrative expenses] helped offset some of the impact of soft markets and competitive pricing, but more is needed,” he outlined. “In the second quarter, we took additional steps to simplify our manufacturing footprint and lower our cost base. After the sale of MHPS, Terex will be a smaller company. We are committed to reducing our cost structure accordingly.”

A new mining code has been launched by the World Initiative of Mining Lawyers (WIOML) to aid countries in both attracting investment and securing benefits for their own economies.

“The code provides a good starting point for countries without a code in place yet,” Andrew van Zyl, a partner and principal consultant at consulting engineers and scientists, SRK Consulting said,according to IM Mining.

“It also provides a useful benchmark against which a country could compare its existing code.”

Aspects of the code include licence allocation, work-it-or-lose-it, the right to mine, and social licences.

“Clearly, the transparent awarding of exploration licences is a key starting point for any national effort to promote mineral development,” van Zyl said.

He went on to say under the code miners should be given longer lead times for exploration, raising the potential of making economically viable discoveries – given that the average period for economic discovery is around eight years – followed by right to mine permissions, based on objective criteria free of discretion.

“So this should be done on an objective basis with free and open access – although there may be circumstances under which tendering could be considered.”

Van Zyl added that in the current investment strained market, clearer and more reasonable codes will aid in attracting investors, and should be used to build a constructive collaboration with mining stakeholders.

“There is little appetite or ability right now to raise the billions of dollars needed to develop large mining projects,” he said.

“But there is the time to invest much smaller amounts in the vital but neglected process of forging agreement and trust between miners, governments, communities, NGOs and other interested parties.”

“When it comes to stakeholder engagement, miners have traditionally found themselves between the proverbial rock and hard place,” Deloitte explained.

“Reconciling the often competing needs of government, local communities, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), employees, and regulators – whilst still delivering return on shareholder investment – has become a balancing act of huge proportions.”

Researchers found that mining projects with expenditures of between US$3 billion to US$5 billion can incur weekly losses of roughly US$20 million due to delayed production caused by community opposition, according to Rachel Davis and Daniel Franks’ Harvard Kennedy School report, Costs of Company-Community Conflict in the Extractive Sector.

“Too many projects are rushed into construction when commodity prices are buoyant, and are consequently hampered by a lack of local buy-in and insufficient clarity about each player’s respective roles, responsibilities and benefits,” van Zyl said.

“In many cases, the process becomes fraught with mistrust and brinkmanship, which delays or even threatens the project altogether.”

He went on to state: “It is vital for mining companies to take the initiative in setting up these meaningful discussions, rather than waiting for governments to impose solutions that may not be as effective,” he said.

“There is a danger that the industry is perceived as often being on the back foot and reacting defensively to the demands of other parties; goal-driven communication between these groups will help ease that perception.”

The code was launched at the recent WIOML conference.