Newcomer to the Australian mine development market, Develop Global, is looking to bolster its people and equipment stocks as it starts work on the A$400 million Bellevue gold mine contract it won last month with the acquisition of 12-year-old Premium Mining businesses associated with managing director Bill Beament.
ASX-listed Develop says it is paying A$7.46m for Premium Mining & Civil, and Premium Mining Personnel, mainly in Develop shares. The stock is down more than 30% this year – after a 10% uptick today – capitalising Develop at about A$406m.
Premium is led by founder, Paul Allison.
Develop is contracted to provide construction, development and production services for Bellevue Gold at its underground mine, north of Leinster in WA. Bellevue Gold is fully funded to develop it’s A$250m namesake project.
The contractor highlighted WA’s stretched labour market in announcing the Premium deal.
“This acquisition bolsters Develop’s capabilities in providing underground expertise and equipment, both of which are in extremely high demand and will play critical roles in helping Develop achieve its goals as a mine owner/developer and mining services business partner,” the company said.
Beament, formerly head of Australian gold major Northern Star Resources, owns about 10% of Premium.
Bellevue Gold said earlier this week it had signed a preliminary works agreement with ASX-listed GR Engineering Services for engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) services for its planned one million tonnes per annum gold processing plant.
GR Engineering said it would immediately start design engineering services and order long lead and design critical path equipment including the ball mill, crushing equipment, screens agitators, leach and tailings thickeners.
Bellevue and GRES expect to finalise a full EPC contract shortly.
The gold company aims to be in production at Bellevue in the second half of next year.
GR Engineering’s share price has fallen about 11% so far in 2022, capitalising the company at about A$307m.
