Maules Creek

Whitehaven Coal’s $A767 Maules Creek open cut mine in New South Wales is running ahead of schedule, railing its first coal last month earlier than expected.

Construction is more than two thirds complete and the mine is expected to produce 2.5Mt run-of-mine coal by the end of June.

Whitehaven expects to declare commercial production on July 1 with the operation to ramp up to 6.5Mtpa at cash costs of $62/t.

The project already has approval to ramp up to 13Mtpa ROM.

Roy Hill

One of the largest greenfields mining developments in the world currently, the $A10 billion Roy Hill iron ore development is charging towards first production.

Roy Hill, 115km north of Newman, is more than 70% complete and running ahead of schedule.

As well as a 55 million tonne per annum mine, the project involves the development of a 344km railway line to Port Hedland, where an export facility is being built.

It currently employs more than 7000 people and the project has an initial mine life of 20 years.

First ore was mined in May and first ore on ship is due by September.

Roy Hill is owned by Hancock Prospecting (70%), Marubeni Corporation (15%), POSCO (12.5%) and China Steel Corporation (2.5%).

Iron Bridge

Despite a slump in the iron ore price, the development of Fortescue Metals Group’s Iron Bridge magnetite mine is nearing completion.

The $US340 million ($A413.3 million) stage one development is being 100% funded by Taiwanese joint venture partner Formosa Plastics Group.

It will produce 1.5-2Mtpa of iron product grading 66%, which will be shipped out of FMG’s Herb Elliott Port after being trucked and pumped via a slurry pipeline to Port Hedland.

FMG has described the stage one development as a “pilot plant”, which will use cutting-edge technology with lower energy consumption to succeed where other magnetite mines had failed.

Expected cash costs haven’t been announced, though the mine is due for first production by the end of this quarter.

The stage two development envisages a much larger open pit mine, producing 9.5Mtpa of 66-68% iron over a 45-year life.

The North Star and Glacier Valley magnetite deposits hold around 5.2 billion tonnes of iron ore.

Rocklands

CuDeco is close to commissioning the 3Mtpa plant at its $A300 million Rocklands copper project near Cloncurry in Queensland.

Construction started in August 2013 and the company has taken its time to get the best value-for-money, with CuDeco executive chairman Wayne Macrae reporting “blatant gouging” by Australian mining services companies.

“The CuDeco board was not prepared to pay an extra $200 million for the total projects, just for the sake of being on time,” he said at the time.

The stage 1 open pit has a mine life of 10 years, based on measured and indicated resources of 30Mt at 1.9% copper equivalent for 1.3 billion pounds of copper equivalent.

CuDeco says the Rocklands plant is one of the most sophisticated in Australia and will produce multiple mineral products (copper, gold, cobalt, magnetite, pyrite) in four final concentrates.

The company has adopted a no fly-in, fly-out policy, which it estimates will result in around $500,000 per month in cost savings.

Keysbrook

Construction recently started at MZI Resources’ Keysbrook mineral sands project following the receipt of $US37.5 million in funding from Resource Capital Fund.

GR Engineering Services will begin site works next month under a $A54.6 million engineering, procurement and construction contract.

Transmin Engineering has begun work on the mine feed unit under a $4.7 million contract, with Western Power beginning $3.9 million of grid connection work.

The Keysbrook project is about 70km south of Perth and first production is due in December.

Keysbrook will produce around 96,000tpa mineral sands products, comprising leucoxene, titanium dioxide and zircon.

Around 85% of planned annual production has been sold under long-term contracts.