Emeco Holdings’ recently acquired subsidiary Pit N Portal has secured two contracts with Mincor Resources for work on its nickel operations in Western Australia.
Emeco Holdings’ recently acquired subsidiary Pit N Portal has secured two contracts with Mincor Resources for work on its nickel operations in Western Australia.
Maddington-based Pit N Portal will complete underground works at Mincor’s new Cassini nickel mine in Kambalda under a five-year contract, where early surface works were recently undertaken by Hampton Mining and Civil Services.
Mincor has also awarded Pit N Portal a three-year contract for underground mining works at the company’s Durkin North and Long nickel mines, also in Kambalda, with options to extend by two years.
Emeco managing director Ian Testrow said the works at Kambalda were a great opportunity for the company’s Pit N Portal business, which it acquired at the end of February for $72 million.
“Partnering with Mincor on such a high-quality project further reinforces our confidence in the business, our expanded service offering and our ability to execute our strategic objective to diversify our commodity,” he said in an ASX announcement.
West Perth-based Mincor plans to begin mining operations at Kambalda in the second-half of the calendar year, subject to a final investment decision on the company’s nickel restart plan.
Managing director David Southam said the work awarded to Pit N Portal, based in Kalgoorlie, was in line with the company’s commitment to supporting local businesses.
He said Pit N Portal was selected based on a wide range of criteria, including the ability to meet mobilisation timelines and size of contract fleet.
“The equipment fleet suits our proposed style of mining and, as one of Australia’s largest hard-rock underground mining equipment solutions providers, we will have access to a large range of equipment options and high-class maintenance and rebuild capacity,” Mr Southam said in a separate announcement.
“[This] gives us significant operational and strategic flexibility, which is important when operating a number of underground mines.”
He said the contract also supported indigenous employment, which formed part of Mincor’s recently signed Native Title Mining Agreement with the Ngadju People.
“The award of this contract fulfils another commitment we made to shareholders as part of our capital raising last year and puts us in a strong position as we move into the advanced stages of project financing,” Mr Southam added.
He said project financing was progressing well, with several global and domestic banks and resource-specialist financiers now short-listed.
Shares in Mincor were up 2.2 per cent at 1:35pm AEST to trade at 71 cents.
Emeco shares were also up, trading 4.7 per cent higher to $1.10.
The company said Pit N Portal had a strong pipeline of work and was performing in line with expectations.
Emeco, however, disclosed its second-half earnings had been affected by COVID-19, due to additional costs and a fall in the coal price.
This resulted in reduced operations in the eastern region, Emeco said, but the company’s Western Region and Force Workshops continued to perform well.
The company expects full-year operating EBITDA to be between $244 million and $247 million.
