PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Nickel miner Sirius Resources has reduced the capital cost at its Nova project, in Western Australia, by A$30-million, to A$443-million, as a result of cost saving on construction contracts and tenders.
The miner told shareholders on Tuesday that the savings identified to date did not compromise on quality of specifications of contracts, but rather reflected the highly competitive nature of the mining services sector in the current economic climate.
Meanwhile, Sirius officially started mining its Nova mine on Monday, following the receipt of the final statutory approvals required for the start of the mining operation.
Having pre-positioned key contractors on site in anticipation of these approvals, mining operations were now proceeding alongside a number of major key construction activities.
“It is very satisfying to have started mining of Nova exactly two-and-a-half years since the announcement of its discovery, and even more fitting that such a significant milestone should fall on Australia Day for this world-class project,” said Sirius MD Mark Bennett.
“We have started the project on time, on plan and significantly within original capital expenditure budget estimates.”
Initial mining was expected to take some three months to complete, and would be followed by the mining of the underground decline.
The Nova nickel mine was expected to deliver about 26 000 t/y of nickel, 11 500 t/y of copper and 850 t/y of cobalt over a ten-year mine life.