PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Mining major BHP will spend more than A$600-million at the Olympic Dam operation, in 2018.

Asset president Jacqui McGill said in a speech at the American Chamber of Commerce in Adelaide, last week, that the company had 49 projects in execution at Olympic Dam during the 2018 financial year.

The A$600-million capital has been appointed across three key areas, including an underground expansion of the operation at the high-grade Southern Mine area, further underground development of the existing Northern Mine area footprint, and a wide range of infrastructure and other programmes.

“This represents the most significant investment we’ve ever made in our South Australian operations. And these investments, in our underground infrastructure and aboveground processing operations, will help us build the foundations for long-term, safe, stable and sustainable growth at Olympic Dam,” she said.

“The investment will ensure the operation is more modern, reliable and can support processing of additional tonnes in coming financial years.”

The planned 2018 spend is in addition to the A$250-million invested at Olympic Dam in the last four years to expand underground operations.

To support the additional work at Olympic Dam, McGill said that BHP was recruiting to make sure the best people were working with the team.

“In addition to leveraging the expertise of our BHP colleagues internally, we’re also boosting numbers in our Olympic Dam squad, so that we have a more diverse workforce that is representative of the communities in which we operate in.

“I’m proud that in the last 12 months, our recruitment of new female employees to join our team has increased by 20%. And our recent efforts to renew our focus on effective contractor relationships has also been a success, through our Industry Capability Network Gateway online, we had a total of 226 submissions and 70% of registrations new to Olympic Dam and more than 30% were from South Australia,” McGill said.