South African gold miner Harmony’s intention for Eva project

Harmony aims to recruit from major North Queensland communities from the middle of next year if it can get its Eva project permits approved.

Johannes Van Heerden, Chief Operating Officer, Business Development and Growth, Harmony Gold Mining Company.

South African gold mining giant Harmony aims to recruit from major North Queensland communities from the middle of next year if it can get its Eva project permits approved.

Its company’s group chief operating officer Johannes van Heerden said there would also be 800 jobs in the construction phase, which could start from the middle of next year if its approvals were completed.

“From a workforce turnover perspective, having people that’s approximate to the mine always stands in good stead, that is our focus and benefit” Mr van Heerden said.

“It will be a new development in this region and we think targeting Mount Isa, Cloncurry, Townsville, Cairns as a region from which to source workers would be the way to go.

“We see outside the Eva project a lot of further regional potential which we want to pursue.”

Johannes Van Heerden, Chief Operating Officer, Business Development and Growth, Harmony Gold Mining Company.

He said the aim was to build the mine 75km north of Cloncurry to align with the company’s goal to be net-zero by 2045, and therefore would likely rely on renewable energy in the region to support its upgraded copper concentrator.

Mr van Heerden said the decisions for power supply was at a “critical juncture” as the company considered the impact of Copperstring being constructed.

The State Government has shown interest in fast tracking the Eva project which is a “close neighbour” of MMG’s Dugald River, to help solve the 1200 job losses that Mount Isa faces next year when Glencore shuts its copper mines and concentrator in the city.

The deposit itself has about a 35 year history of passing ownership and exploration development since initially discovered in 1990.

But the company had been working on a feasibility study in the past 18 months since it took over the site and had employed 35 employees directly and used 150 consultants.

“What was economic 20-30 years ago, copper was 80 cents a pound, versus what’s economic now is very, very different,” he said.

“This project has gone through a number of ownership hands over the years and everyone contributed a bit to the knowledge, so we basically are at the end of the line in terms of wealth of knowledge that has built over the years.

“And then applying new technology and approach on how we want to take this forward.

“We believe we’re a partner in choice in this development, sustainability is a key part of what we do, we’ve got a lot of technical expertise we can bring to bear on progress on this project, and we’ve also got a balance sheet to support the project which will be quite significant.”

Harmony claims the world’s deepest mine in South Africa, Mponeng Gold Mine, which is 3.8km deep, and until recently focused on extracting gold, and its interest in Papua New Guinea in 2008 had developed regional base in Brisbane.

Currently there were more than 100 employees based in Brisbane where the planning for Eva was based.

In total the company had more than 35,000 employees in its mines across the world, which Mr dee Heerden said showed the company’s international expertise in the mining industry since it began in 1950.

Lately the company had shown interest in copper and increasingly had its eye on the North West Minerals Province.

Mr nee Heerden said the company’s culture was to “tell it as it is”, while emphasising safety.

Originally published as South African gold miner Harmony’s intention for Eva project