Heritage Minerals Mount Morgan project helps reduce unemployment rate
As Heritage Minerals continues to ramp up its revival of a Central Queensland mine, the economic benefits that have already flowed through can be revealed.
Rockhampton
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The economic benefits associated with the revival of the Mount Morgan mine by Heritage Minerals have already trickled through the quiet town west of Rockhampton.
Heritage Minerals acquired the project in June 2020 and commenced project delivery activities in January this year.
In this time, Mount Morgan’s unemployment rate has fallen from 20 per cent in June 2020 to 11.1 per cent in December 2022.
As a whole local government area, the Rockhampton region’s unemployment rate in that same period has fallen from 7.9 per cent to 3.9 per cent.
These rates are among the “strongest improvers” in Queensland in the last two years.
Heritage Minerals managing director Malcolm Paterson.Heritage Minerals manager director Malcolm Paterson said he expected this trend to continue as the company continued with its hiring plans.
Led by Rockhampton Regional Council’s Advance Rockhampton, hiring will be split into two phases with the initial construction phase spearheaded by the engineering contractor, to include 250 jobs and to start in the second half of 2023.
The forthcoming works include the commencement of early-stage earthworks for a new access road to take heavy traffic out of the centre of Mount Morgan, a drilling program and further work on the water balance model, improvements to the administration buildings, and a drain to divert freshwater captured on the site to a freshwater storage as a new way to lessen acid mine drainage.
Along with earthworks and civil works, other early works in 2023 relate to the supply and fabrication of steel, an upgraded power line and transformer, engineering for a water treatment plant, and tailings storage improvements.
Footage from Heritage Minerals of its Mount Morgan mine.Additional detailed engineering design work continues to progress with expressions of interest now closed for the primary engineering contract, to be awarded in May or June.
The second phase is for operations, from late 2024, with 150 jobs estimated on an ongoing basis.
The crowd at a community information session.A Community Information Session was held by Heritage Minerals at the Mount Morgan School of Arts last month to brief the community on recent activities with more than 100 people in attendance.
Rockhampton Regional Council Mayor Tony Williams, who spoke at the event, said there was a lot of positive support for the project across the Mount Morgan community.
“It was great to see Heritage Minerals engage with locals and provide a detailed overview of their plans to process tailings at the mine,” he said.
“This will be an important economic driver in our local economy and will mean new jobs and opportunities for Mount Morgan residents.
“Council is proud to partner with Heritage Minerals to support the project and ensure we see the very best outcomes achieved for our region.”
The project has secured conditional approval of $66 million from the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility and support from the Queensland Government’s Invested in Queensland program, with full financial close anticipated in mid-2023 and regulatory approvals in place.
More than 100 people attended the Community Information Session at the Mount Morgan School of Arts.Mr Paterson noted that everything that had been achieved so far would not have been possible without the high level of support from and co-ordination with the local, state and federal governments.
All are supporting the project’s focus on local contracting and employment and its Indigenous Engagement Plan, as well as improved environmental outcomes.
“The partnership with all levels of government has been crucial in the development of the project, and it will now be crucial in the project delivery,” Mr Paterson said.
“The collaborative approach we have adopted is to develop and deliver this project with as much local content and as many local hands as possible.
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“We remain hopeful of commissioning the project on schedule in late 2024.”
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