Suppliers news: Amec Foster, Cons. Mining & Civil, DOWL, Argus

Amec Foster Wheeler to work on expanding Copler

Alacer Gold (TSX: ASR; US-OTC: ALIAF) has picked the newly-formed mega contractor Amec Foster Wheeler (NYSE: AMFW; LSE: AMFW), to provide basic design verification services for expanding its 80%-owned Copler gold mine in Turkey.

The deal will see the contractor verify the basic design package produced by a third party. The goal is to enhance consistency and completeness of the design and account for constructability and local factors. Concurrently, Amec Foster Wheeler will prepare a proposal for engineering, procuring and building the mine expansion project.

The firms expect the work to be complete in the first quarter of this year.

“We are pleased to have been selected,” says Dave Lawson, Amec Foster Wheeler’s president for global mining and metals markets. “This win perfectly demonstrates the power of the recent Amec and Foster Wheeler combination, leveraging the proven gold processing expertise of the Amec team and Foster Wheeler’s highly regarded Turkish operation and successful project delivery track record in Turkey.”

The planned Copler expansion will allow the project to produce 5,000 tonnes per day of gold sulphide ore over the mine’s 20-year life.

Headquartered in London, Amec Foster Wheeler has more than 40,000 employees in 50 countries and provides consultancy, engineering, project management, operations and construction services, project delivery and specialized power equipment services.

Havilah Resources hires contractor to mine Portia deposit

Australian junior Havilah Resources (ASX: HAV) has signed a deal that will see contractor Consolidated Mining & Civil (CMC) mine gold ore from its Portia deposit near Broken Hill in South Australia.

Under the deal CMC will fund and execute all mining tasks to deliver gold ore to a surface stockpile.

Havilah is responsible for processing the ore from Portia.

Revenue for physical gold derived from the Portia deposit will be split between the two firms. A joint operating committee chaired by Havilah will oversee all operations.

CMC is also providing a bank guarantee to Havilah so it can post the A$1.95-million rehabilitation bond required by authorities as a permitting condition.

“Havilah is in effect sharing a portion of the gold revenue with the mining contractor, who will fund the cost of delivering the gold ore to surface for processing,” Havilah managing director Chris Giles said. “This allows the Portia gold project to proceed without Havilah taking on onerous conventional loan terms or a significant dilution of existing shareholders as a result of issuing additional equity.

CMC anticipates the first shipment of gold ore will be delivered to the processing plant in June 2016.

“[Havilah] shareholders can look forward to significant returns from gold sales in 2016, which will put Havilah in a good position to advance development of its other projects, including the much larger Kalkaroo copper-gold deposit,” Giles said.

Initial site works, airstrip and access road upgrades, and camp construction will begin this month at Portia, with overburden removal starting in March.

Portia has a JORC inferred resource of 720,000 tonnes grading 2.9 grams gold per tonne for 67,000 contained oz. gold. CMC will be build an open-pit design that aims to recover at least 80% of the resource via gravity processing.

Broken Hill-based CMC was founded 1911 and been involved with many mining and infrastructure projects in the area. CMC employs more than 300 people.

Havilah has a suite of gold, copper and iron ore exploration properties in Curnamona province in northeastern South Australia, including Portia, which is the most advanced.

DOWL HKM simplifies name

U.S. engineering firm DOWL HKM is dropping the letters ‘HKM’ from its name. Going forward the firm will be known simply as DOWL.

The former name arose from a 2008 merge between Dowl Engineers and HKM Engineering.

The merged name made sense in those days, as both firms had 50 years of history and reputations connected to their respective names.

“While some found the combined name awkward, we didn’t want to lose name recognition in the markets we served,” said Stewart Osgood, DOWL president, in a release.

“Today, clients recognize us as one company. Shortening the name is a natural progression.”

DOWL emphasizes that the company retains the “same great people, with a truncated name … and we certainly aren’t forgetting the legacy left by HKM Engineering’s founding fathers Hurlbut, Kersich and McCullough. We will honour them by living our charter of inspiration, integrity and innovation.”

DOWL now has 24 offices with 425 employees throughout Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Montana, Oregon, North Dakota, Washington, and Wyoming.

Argus buys MetalPrices.com

Energy and commodity price reporting agency Argus Media has bought metalprices.com, with an eye to widening the scope of information it provides to customers.

Metal Prices is an online service that offers proprietary price assessments, futures prices and other exchange data and third-party assessments of global market. The online service specializes reporting the metal prices that are not listed on the major exchanges, but are essential for global trade.

Founded in 1995, Metal Prices publishes 300 proprietary price assessments per week, which inform indexation and market analysis, especially in North American ferrous and non-ferrous secondary metal markets

 “Metal Prices is a natural fit for Argus’ expanding energy and commodities portfolio,” Argus Media chairman and CEO Adrian Binks said. “In recent years we have increased our metals coverage to include iron ore, coking coal and metallurgical coke services as well as coverage of the ferro-alloy, minor metals and rare earth markets through our purchase of Metal-Pages in May 2014. This acquisition complements this and extends Argus’ global coverage of metals markets.”

Metal Prices’ president Marc Dulin said that “we are delighted to become part of Argus as it deepens its metals coverage. The Metal Prices service will go from strength to strength with the benefit of Argus’ international reputation, technical resources and global editorial team, which we are all excited to join.”

London-headquarted Argus Media employs 700 people in 19 offices worldwide. More than half of Argus’ employees are commodity journalists.