Barminco wins $240m Nova extension

Barminco has secured a four-year contract extension for underground mining services at Independence Group’s Nova operation in the Fraser Range.

Under the $240 million contract, which includes an option for a two-year extension, Barminco will provide underground mining services including development and production mining.

Barminco has delivered 29 kilometres of development and extracted 2.4 million tonnes of ore since development at Nova started in 2015.

Barminco chief executive Paul Muller said Nova was an important project for the company.

“We are proud to say that Barminco has been at Nova from the outset and it is very pleasing that we can continue our close association with the IGO through this long-term extension at Nova,” he said.

“Barminco has supported the Nova project’s transition from development, starting with excavation of the box-cut on Australia Day 2015, to production, delivering a successful first year of commercial production in the 2018 financial year.”

Mr Muller said the companies had also agreed to establish a technology development committee.

“We now look forward to working closely with IGO under a formal arrangement to drive further productivity and safety improvements at Nova,” he said.

“This includes establishment of a technology committee, which will initially target projects such as the early-stage development of electric vehicles, enhanced mine control systems, machine vision and proximity detection.”

IGO managing director Peter Bradford said Barminco had been an important partner in the development of Nova.

“With the majority of the capital development completed at Nova there is a focus on incremental operational and productivity improvements associated with stope mining activities,” he said.

“The four-year term, with the option to extend by two years, allows us to work together to unlock this value.

“Both Barminco and IGO are committed to mapping and implementing these productivity improvements through new technologies.

“The establishment of the technology committee is an important step towards this objective.”