Round Oak invests in camp and roadworks as copper mine ramps up

Round Oak Minerals is building a 60-bed accommodation camp at Mount Colin as the copper operation ramps up.

The first production ore came out of the ground this month at the underground mine, located between Mount Isa and Cloncurry.

“We have started hauling crushed ore to Glencore’s Ernest Henry operation with processing anticipated to commence in October,” Round Oak Minerals chief executive officer Rob Cooper said.

As at the end of August approximately 17,000 tonnes of crushed ore had been hauled to Ernest Henry.

With the operation ramping up, Mr Cooper said Round Oak was looking to provide on-site accommodation for the workforce, who now make a bus trip of about one hour between Mount Isa and Mount Colin mine at the start and end of each shift.

The company has secured second-hand rooms and Increva are managing construction of the camp. Round Oak has yet to announce who will be operating it.

Mr Cooper said the $3.3 million investment would help reduce the travel and fatigue risks for workers.

Barminco is the underground mining contractor at Mount Colin while Qcrush is the crushing contractor and Havago Transport provide bulk haulage services.

Mr Cooper said the workforce had reached about 50 at the Mount Colin site and would peak at around 70.

Round Oak is also investing in local roadworks, with JDR Mining and Civil completing a project to realign the Mount Colin access road and BMD Construction are constructing a new intersection with the Barkly Highway.

Mr Cooper said it was one of four intersections Road Oak was upgrading for its operations, including another for the Barbara copper operation, about 60km north-east of Mount Isa.

The other two are Landsborough Highway intersections the company uses to transport ore from its satellite gold mines that feed the processing plant at Cloncurry. 

The total road works infrastructure costs are about $3.5 million.