News

July 24, 2008

Think Small, Dig Deeper: Mincor’s Operations At Kambalda Should Last For Decades

By Alastair Ford

Think small and dig deeper. The combination sounds odd, but when you combine it with high-grade ore, a picture emerges which explains why, in a falling price environment, the management at the Australian nickel miner Mincor remains extremely confident about the future. A glimpse of that came this week in the company’s June quarter report which noted record production, falling costs, fresh exploration success and the start of production at new nickel mines. But the real measure of confidence comes from a conversation with Mincor’s chief executive, David Moore, the man who spotted eight years ago a chance to achieve what always eluded the once-mighty Western Mining Corporation (WMC) – the “re-invention” of one of its greatest discoveries, the Kambalda Dome near Kalgoorlie in central Western Australia.

Since Mincor snapped up a controlling stake in Miitel, one of WMC’s mothballed mines at Kambalda in late 2000, it has been on a production and buying spree around Kambalda, which is one of the world’s great sources of high-grade sulphide nickel. Today, Mincor is big enough to divide its operations into two Kambalda divisions, north and south, with 11 separate mines in production, under construction, or subject of a feasibility study. What makes this profusion of mines so interesting is that if...