Rio Tinto hands $65m Koodaideri contract to SCEE

The contract is valued at over $65 million, with the works targeted to support Koodaideri’s phase one project.

The Koodaideri project is set to be Rio Tinto’s most technologically advanced mine, leveraging equipment such as autonomous trucks, trains and drills and incorporating more than 70 design innovations in scope including digital twins.

Koodaideri phase one will help sustain Rio Tinto’s existing production capacity by replacing depletion elsewhere in the system. The project will increase the higher-value lump component of the Pilbara Blend, subject to market conditions, from the current average of about 35 per cent to around 38 per cent.

SCEE plans to mobilise to site late this year and conclude the works by December next year.

“We are pleased to secure this significant award with such a longstanding and valued client as Rio Tinto for whom we have undertaken many successful projects in the Pilbara,” SCEE managing director Graeme Dunn said.

“This further boosts our already strong order book and will provide a solid base of construction work in the resources sector into the 2022 financial year.”

Rio Tinto has previously contracted SCEE at its Gove Peninsula refinery site in the Northern Territory, and in Western Australia, at its Yandi operation and Cape Lambert port project.

Koodaideri, 100 per cent owned by Rio Tinto, is located approximately 35 kilometres north-west of Rio Tinto’s Yandicoogina mine site, and about 110 kilometres from the town of Newman in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.

The majority of the approved capital for Koodaideri is included in Rio Tinto’s existing guidance of $2.7 billion of replacement capital from 2018 to 2020, with the remaining spend incurred in 2021 outside of the current guidance period.

The development remains subject to final Western Australian government approval.