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EMERGING WA company FairStar Resources has secured US$260 million from a mystery backer for its Steeple Hill iron ore project in WA’s goldfields. The unknown investor will fund 80 per cent of the project through Alliance Super Holdings, and carry the project through to production with an equal 50 per cent joint venture. The money will allow FairStar to fund infrastructure, begin construction and commission a plant at the project. Additionally, the deal will allow a line of credit totalling $640 million above the funding as extra capital for the joint venture. FairStar managing director Kevin Robertson said the company has considered all options and decided the deal was the best choice. “The future prospects for FairStar have never looked...

A successful structural study has outlined 11 priority targets for drilling at Paynes Find Gold’s flagship project 420km northeast of Perth. These include four ‘walk up’ reverse circulation (RC) drilling targets, as well as seven areas requiring further definition through shallow rotary air blast (RAB) drilling within the company’s 940 hectare tenement package. Paynes Find plans to submit a program of works to the WA Government for a 14,000m, 40-day RAB drilling program. Following a review of these results, it is expected to re-rank targets and plan the final coordinates for an 11,000m, 70-day RC drilling program. “Given the company’s recently announced mining services agreement on June 4 and associated 50 per cent profit share, Paynes Find anticipates being in...

REMEDIATION activities continue at a defunct uranium mine in Queensland as part of the State Government’s plan to unlock $4 billion worth of mineral resources in the northwest. State Government officials visited the Mary Kathleen mine near Cloncurry last month, as part of an ongoing assessment of the site’s remediation status and to address environmental and safety issues. Natural Resources and Mines minister Andrew Cripps said officers from the Abandoned Mine Lands Program – which oversees the management of historical mine sites – and the Geological Survey of Queensland would undertake in-depth field assessments, including drilling at the purpose-built tailings dam which contains 7 million tonnes of ore tailings. “This work will enable the department to gain a better understanding...

A team of geologists from Sydney University has released promising findings for the development of a new land analysis technique that could benefit Australia’s declining opal mining industry. Opal is Australia’s national gemstone, with Queensland’s Great Artesian Basin producing over 90 per cent of the world’s supply. However, no significant gem sources of have been discovered within Australian territory since the 1900s; unlike gold exploration, there are no widely accepted strategies or concepts available to guide opal miners to new prospects. Australia’s known opal fields have become progressively barren, particularly in the last 20 years, with mining ventures becoming increasingly expensive but less fruitful. An article published in the Journal of Australian Earth Sciences and in Computers and Geosciences, revealed...

MANY fly in, fly out (FIFO) workers are willing to take a pay cut of up to 27 per cent to survive the mining downturn, according to a new live market report. According to online labour market website FIFOBids, workers in management, health, safety and environment and geology had been most affected, with geologists willing to decrease their rates from $71 per hour to $52/hr, and management workers from $80/hr to $67/hr. “ downturn in mining and resources in Australia, as well as delays in approvals of major projects, has put downward pressure on demand for key skills and wages,” the report stated. Since last year the number of geologists in the field doubled as graduates entered the market –...

DRILLING at Poseidon Nickel’s Windarra nickel project has discovered high grade mineralisation that could potentially double reserves. The Mt Windarra site, 260km northeast of Kalgoorlie in WA, currently has a total mineral resource of 3.95 million tonnes at 1.73 per cent for 68,300t of contained nickel. Bonus for the company is the relatively cheap extraction cost, as the mineralisation zone is close to existing mining infrastructure. Poseidon managing director David Singleton said the results would provide a stream of bonuses to the already economically robust project. “Our discovery cost, prior to this campaign, has been circa 10 cents for every pound of nickel in resources and these drilling results should continue that cost trend,” he said. “I’m particularly pleased with...

A seven-hole drill program completed by Australian explorer White Rock Minerals in April has produced substantial gold mineralisation results. Drilling has reinforced evidence of gold within the company’s emerging Red Rock prospect, at the Mt Carrington gold-silver project in north eastern NSW. The program was designed to infill drilling gaps within known mineralisation zones, to firm up existing data on the geological model. To date, 17 of the 23 holes drilled have been assessed to hold promising gold quantities at easily accessible depths. The newest test drills were also exploratory in nature, testing for gold vein continuance, particularly within the northerly mineralisation belt, Deadman’s Zone. This zone remains open to the north. The assays conducted from the newest diamond drilling...

ALTHOUGH construction is incomplete, Rio Tinto has struck a deal with Lundin Mining to offload its Eagle mine project for US$325 million. The Michigan-based project is roughly 55 per cent complete and includes a high grade underground nickel-copper mine and mill. Lundin chief executive Paul Conibear said the purchase represented a unique opportunity to acquire a low-risk, high-return project. “The acquisition of the Eagle Mine its ideally within Lundin Mining’s asset base and is the result of the disciplined approach we have been focussed on for some time to acquire high-quality, advanced stage assets in low-risk, mining-oriented jurisdictions,” he said. “The Eagle mine represents a very unique opportunity to acquire a high-grade project which is under construction and expected to...

A proposed $4.2 billion coal mine in the Galilee Basin has received environmental approval from the Queensland Coordinator-General. The proposed Kevin’s Corner project – being developed by Hancock Galilee, a wholly-owned subsidiary of India’s GVK Group – comprises two open cut mines and three underground mines, accommodation for 2000 staff and an airport. Kevin’s Corner will produce 30 million tonnes of coal per year and rely on the railway infrastructure of the nearby Alpha coal project, to transport the product to the Port of Abbot Point. “We are pleased with the consent given by the coordinator-general which culminates in the provision of a State Environmental Approval for the project,” said GVK vice chairman G V Sanjay Reddy. “This project will...

ASX-listed explorer Crusader Resources has progressed towards full production rights at its newest mining venture, the Posse Iron Ore project, after receiving a full environmental licence for the Brazil-based project. Lying 30km from Belo Horizonte in the country’s east, Posse Iron Ore has operated under a trial mining licence since opening in March which restricted throughput at the mine to 300,000 tonnes of ore per annum. However, six weeks after the mine’s first production, Crusader was granted a combined preliminary and installation licence for environmental approval of its 100 per cent owned iron ore project by Brazil’s Minas Gerais State Environmental Council, COPAM, enabling it to apply for complete mining rights and ramp-up production to full capacity. All key infrastructure...