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Mining and Metals
The global mining boom continued its unprecedented growth in 2007-08. Our skill base and long-established relationships with major clients has put SKM in a strong position to benefit from this boom, which we still believe will continue for at least another five years, if not substantially longer.
We are currently delivering studies and EPCM projects with a total capital value of A$25 billion across Western Australia, Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia, Chile, Peru, Brazil and Africa.
We added offices in London and China during the year, complementing our offices in Perth, Brisbane, Newcastle, Adelaide, Santiago and Manila. There are plans for additional offices in Peru and Brazil.
Clients include major mining houses such as Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton, Anglo American, Xstrata, Vale and Codelco, in commodities such as iron ore, coal, copper, mineral sands and aluminium. We continue to focus on building long-term relationships with these major clients, based on offering strategic, valuable and innovative services which add value to their business.
Sustainability is an important element of all mining projects, and this was successfully applied during the year, minimising the effect on the environment and communities, and producing benefits in areas such as water, energy and waste. A tremendous advantage is our ability to call on a suite of specialist skills available at SKM, which has allowed us to win significant projects.
A highlight for the year has been negotiating the biggest single contract in SKM's history, a program of work including mine, rail links and a port. This joint venture with Fluor is to work as Program Manager for BHP Billiton's iron ore expansion in the Pilbara, Western Australia. This work has a capital expenditure of $A20 billion over the next five to seven years. We continue to also work with Rio Tinto Iron Ore in the Pilbara on their expansion projects, which will eventually take the miner's total iron production in the region to 320 Million Tonnes Per Annum by 2012.
In fact our expertise in the Pilbara on iron ore projects, developed over the past 40 years, led Brazilian miner Vale, the world's largest iron ore mining company to commission us to undertake a number of Value Engineering projects in Brazil.
During the year we increased our staff numbers by 10 per cent, and continued to post a strong safety record. While the outlook is positive, resourcing pressures remain, with challenging labour markets in all regions.
SKM first exported its skills and services to South America in 1998 as sub-consultants on projects in Chile, Bolivia and Argentina.
Read more:South America
