OZ Minerals Prominent Hill Copper Mine - EPC

The flagship project involved an open-pit mine, copper / gold ore processing facilities, and mine infrastructure.

Fluor provided engineering, procurement, and construction management services for the A$1 billion ($US 700 million) project.

Client's Challenge

OZ Minerals (formerly Oxiana) is Australia's 7th largest ASX listed mining company and approximately the 50th largest public company in Australia. OZ Minerals is focused on copper.

Prominent Hill was a large and complex project in a remote location in South Australia. Discovery of the copper / gold deposit in 2001 had been the standout greenfield discovery of the decade in Australia.

The production of first concentrates only 8 years later was a significant achievement in the mining industry.

Project policy was to support the local economy as much as possible during the design, equipment ordering, and construction phases.

Fluor's Solution

Fluor provided full engineering, procurement, and construction management services on the project, the first major mining project in the region since an expansion of Olympic Dam in the late 1990s, which also involved Fluor. The project involved development of an open-pit mine, copper / gold ore processing facilities, and mine infrastructure. Fluor's scope included crushing and grinding facilities, a flotation processing plant (concentrator) with 8 million metric tons per annum capacity of copper and gold, construction of a permanent village to accommodate a 500-person workforce, and construction of haul roads, power lines, an airfield, and a bore field.

Onsite, Fluor's construction management organization averaged 400 workers, with up to 1,000 construction workers at peak periods. Nearly 80 percent of the project workforce (including engineers and construction workers) were locally hired, and approximately half of project expenditures were realized by the South Australia economy.

Conclusion

The Prominent Hill mine produces high quality copper concentrates for export and domestic consumption. The first production of copper occurred in February 2009 and plant throughput is currently consistently at 25% above nameplate capacity.

Export is via the Adelaide-Darwin railway, which passes within 116 km of the mine on its track to the Port of Darwin.