PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Mining major BHP will invest A$350-million into its Olympic Dam operations, in South Australia, in a smelter maintenance campaign.
Olympic Dam asset president Jacqui McGill said the smelter maintenance campaign was the largest planned shutdown by BHP in South Australia.
“There will be 1 300 contractors at Olympic Dam during the peak of construction as teams work around the clock to dismantle, rebuild and upgrade integral components of the facility.
“Work is under way on site with teams preparing to dismantle old infrastructure and starting to take delivery of more than 350 material loads to support the project,” McGill said.
“The rolling shutdown across the surface operations starts in August with the maintenance campaign running for more than 100 days in total.
“As always, the safety of our people and our contractors is paramount as we focus on this demanding and complex project which will help underpin stability and growth at Olympic Dam for many years to come.”
The smelter campaign involves combined investment in three key areas to ensure the ongoing integrity of critical infrastructure and to continue to deliver safe and reliable performance, including rebuilding key elements of the smelter flash furnace, demolishing and building a new electric slag furnace, and removing and replacing the five-storey-high electro static precipitator.
Olympic Dam is also using the planned downtime to undertake further refinery asset maintenance.
Edited by: Creamer Media Reporter
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