The MOSA JV team has successfully delivering the third and final bench of a complex retaining wall at Newmont Corporation’s gold mining operations on Lihir Island, Papua New Guinea. The JV is a partnership between French construction major VINCI-owned company Spiecapag along with sister company Menard Oceania.
The company said the unique and highly technical project has enabled safe access to existing mining batters. Over the course of 46 months, the team installed 1,315 ground anchors and 4,425 m of waler beam. The project had no time lost to injury with approximately 2.3 million hours worked
Officially known as the Lihir Ground Stabilisation Project, it was a first-of a-kind, and highly technical project consisting of securing a benched retaining wall with cabled strength anchors in a geothermally
active environment to enable gold mining operations to continue in the adjacent pit.
Perfect Shafts International (PSI) was engaged as a labour service subcontractor to supply experienced supervisors and drillers to complement the project’s workforce under the management of MOSA JV Ltd to assist with general ground support and the drilling of anchor holes to a depth of 60 m with casing in the geothermal area of the mine using latest technology Hutte 610 drilling machines. This type of project had never been carried out in this environment in PNG before.
PSI supplied experienced personnel in other areas of the project including concrete spraying, steel fixing, anchor installation, grouting, maintenance and rock bolt drilling and installation in environmentally challenging conditions.
