Bellevue Gold Ltd (ASX:BGL) has awarded a raisebore contract for vertical excavation at the namesake Bellevue Gold Project in Western Australia to RUC Cementation Mining Contractors Pty Ltd.
The contract involves expenditure of $15.8 million over 28 months, in line with assumptions made in the recent project update and pre-production capital expenditure forecast.
This comes as execution work at Bellevue Project continues to proceed on time and on budget following record development rates in August. Ninety per cent of pre-production expenditure and critical path items have been locked-in.
Scope of works
The scope of works covered by the raisebore contract includes the establishment of vent rises, return air rises and underground escapeways at the project.
RUC Mining, a subsidiary of the Murray and Roberts Group, is a multinational engineering and contracting company.
Bellevue considers RUC an industry leader in raiseboring, having proprietary techniques and equipment, cost-saving initiatives and localised offsite support centre based in Kalgoorlie.
The two companies have worked together in this capacity on the Bellevue Project in the past.
Assembling "best possible team"
“We are delighted that RUC has joined our team of tier-one contractors, adding to the vast experience and specialist skills we are assembling at the project,” Bellevue Gold managing director Steve Parsons said.
“Having the best possible team on-site helps ensure we will continue to execute our development plan, which remains on time and on budget with 90% of our pre-production contracts locked in.
“The record development rates being recorded are also playing a key role in the precise execution of our strategy, providing further evidence that we are well on track to be the next major ASX gold producer with low operating costs and a 10-year-plus mine life.”
Other activities at Bellevue continue to advance concurrently.
Underground development is ramping up, with August holding the site record for 363 metres of development, well above the modelled development rate.
The company intends to continue to achieve above-forecast development rates in an effort to reduce costs, and will mobilise a second jumbo development drill rig to site in October to support that effort.
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