Newcrest firms up expansion plans

PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Gold miner Newcrest Mining will progress the permit modification process at its Cadia project, in New South Wales, to increase capacity from the current 26-million tonnes a year to 35-million tonnes a year, in an effort to save time.

The company earlier this month announced the completion of a prefeasibility study on the proposed expansion of the Cadia processing plant, the results of which remained under wraps until then as the company was completing remediation and upgrade work at Cadia following a seismic event in April.

Newcrest on Thursday said that during this period, the company had looked for opportunities to parallel track expansion activities to minimise the impact on the overall project schedule, taking the decision to progress the permit modification process in conjunction with feasibility study, once commenced.

This will enable the start of construction in 2018, should the expansion project be approved.

The miner told shareholders that the scope of the feasibility study is currently being refined, and will incorporate learnings from the seismic event, while also examining opportunities to increase the processing rate beyond 35-million tonnes a year.

Meanwhile, the permit modification is expected to encompass an increase in the ore processing rate up from the current permitted 32-million tonnes a year to 35-million tonnes a year, construction and operating of a new concentrator and tailings pipeline, the potential construction and operation of the approved copper/molybdenum separation plant in a different location to that already approved, and an upgrade to the Cadia dewatering facility.

The permit modification will also include increased process reagent use and associated transport requirements.