BHP awards A$200 million haul road and crusher job for its Ministers North iron ore mine

Grafa says Birt's job also includes upgrades to the crushers already running at Yandi, both primary and secondary stages. It gave no start date or schedule. BHP is aiming for first ore from Ministers North in its 2029 financial year and a peak rate of 20 million tonnes a year, replacing depleted deposits at Yandi.

This is the project's second large package. In July, GR Engineering Services signed an EPC deal worth A$229.5 million for the Yandi Eastern front-end upgrade, International Mining reported: a brownfield rebuild of the primary crushing circuit that includes a new two-stage crushing plant rated at 20 million tonnes a year. Grafa's report does not say how the crushing work is divided between the two contractors.

BHP approved Ministers North in July at US$0.9 billion on a 100% basis. The deposit, southeast of Yandi, is owned by BHP (85%), Itochu (8%) and Mitsui (7%) and is being developed as a satellite of Yandi so that its ore runs through existing infrastructure. The approved plan includes the 13-kilometer haul road, a land bridge between the two sites and new primary and secondary crushing stages at Yandi.

BHP said at the time that site works would begin in July and that it was still taking expressions of interest from contractors through the Industry Capability Network Gateway. International Mining noted then that the project still needed regulatory approvals.