Cobham Aviation Services Australia has secured a three-year contract extension to provide fly-in/fly-out (FIFO) services to mining company OZ Minerals.
Under the new deal, Cobham will operate 14 flights a week between Adelaide and the $900 million Carrapateena copper-gold project in South Australia’s far north with Avro RJ100 aircraft.
The contract expands on Cobham’s existing work with OZ Minerals, which includes five services a week to the producing Prominent Hill copper-gold mine, south-east of Coober Pedy, and four to Carrapateena.
All flights call at Port Augusta, to serve workers who live in and near the northern SA city.
The company won the initial OZ contract for Prominent Hill in 2017.
Earlier in 2018, OZ Minerals awarded a $660 million contract to Downer EDI to develop and operate the Carrapateena underground mine over six and a half year period.
The project, located to the south-east of BHP’s giant Olympic Dam operation, is moving ahead, with first copper and gold production expected in the final quarter of calendar 2019.
Cobham Aviation Services vice president of regional services Dean Brennan said the new contract reflected the company’s continued competitive offering within the FIFO environment.
“The Carrapateena project is significant for South Australia and its economy,” Brennan said in a statement on November 19.
“Cobham is delighted to play its part in such an important development and continuing its relationship with OZ Minerals.”
Meanwhile, Cobham has gained another extension of its FIFO services from Perth to the Granny Smith gold mine near Laverton in Western Australia’s Yilgarn region.
South African company Goldfields has been working to extend the mine life and increase production, which is expected to be about 275,000 ounces of gold in 2018.
Brennan said Cobham would continue to provide six services a week to Goldfields under the two-year extension, using an RJ85 jet.
The value of the new contracts was not disclosed.
Look out for the December 2018 issue of Australian Aviation, on-sale November 29, for our profile on Cobham Aviation Services.
