Mining: Mirabela’s project in Brazil

Australian Mirabela Nickel Limited announced 21 February that it has achieved another major milestone in developing its world-class project in Brazil with the follow-up licenses for the Santa Rita project now obtained. As previously announced, the Company was granted the principal development approval (the Installation License which incorporates environmental approval) in October last year.
In addition, the acquisition of all the necessary surface land rights has been completed.
“Construction of the Santa Rita project commenced last November on site infrastructure, but with the follow-up approvals now out of the way we can move to full construction on all fronts to maintain the project on schedule,” said Managing Director Nick Poll. “We have worked hard to explain our intentions and the project’s impact to the local communities. The resulting community support and the need for economic development in the state of Bahia have been strong drivers behind state and federal government support for the project,” he said.
The Company expects to employ about 1500 people directly and indirectly from the populations of Itagiba (17,000 people) and Ipiau (43,000 people) both within 6kms of the project. “We are finding great people who live within15 minutes drive of the project that have a good level of education and plenty of local knowledge,” said Mr Poll.
“The local people will always be an important asset for our project. We are pleased to be developing the local workforce and to be contributing to nearby communities,” he said.
Construction commenced on the project in November 2007 with basic infrastructure such as a bridge, all-weather access roads and site offices. Much of the essential infrastructure was already in place, such as a state highway and an asphalt airstrip within 4km of the project and hydro-electric power within 6km. “In terms of pre-developed local infrastructure, it doesn’t get much better,” said Mr Poll.
Pre-stripping of the mine in both the Northern and Southern zones has been underway since January, as most of the project area is open farm land.
“We have made great progress over the last four months and have not had any problems obtaining heavy machinery for the site works and mine pre-strip,” said Mr Poll. “Brazil has a large industrial base that allows great flexibility for acquiring equipment, because we are not competing so closely with the rest of the mining industry.
For example, the trucking fleet was previously deployed on constructing a hydro-electric power dam. As a result, Brazil’s mining industry is well positioned for growth when it comes to the competitive world of building and operating mining projects,” he said.
Mirabela has deployed an experienced team of Brazilian project engineers led by Raphael Bloise, who previously managed construction of the Sossego project – a 13mtpa copper sulphide project in Brazil. This team is supplemented with extensive nickel processing knowledge from a team originating from Perth and including Narayan Krishnan, who was involved in the commissioning of Mt Keith, and John Knoblauch, who was involved in the commissioning of Sally Malay.
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