Cu-River Mining Pty. Ltd. is a privately owned Australian resources company with interests in iron ore mining and port development projects in

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which in ...

. It is the smaller of two iron ore exporters operating in the state, the larger being the

GFG Alliance GFG Alliance (long name Gupta Family Group Alliance), usually referred to as GFG, is an international group of businesses associated with businessman Sanjeev Gupta and the British Gupta family. , the companies in the group are Liberty Steel Group, ...

. The company is owned by

Adelaide Adelaide ( , ; ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and most populous city of South Australia, as well as the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. The name "Adelaide" may refer to ei ...

-based businessman, Yong Gang Shan and as of 2019 its only producing asset was the Cairn Hill mine in the state's Far North. The company has contracted mining, processing and freight logistics services to Agile Mining Services and Lucas Total Contract Solutions

History

In 2014, Cu-River Mining purchased the Cairn Hill iron ore mine in the

Woomera Prohibited Area The RAAF Woomera Range Complex (WRC) is a major Australian military and civil aerospace facility and operation located in South Australia, approximately north-west of Adelaide. The WRC is operated by the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), a S ...

, near

Coober Pedy Coober Pedy () is a town in northern South Australia, north of Adelaide on the Stuart Highway. The town is sometimes referred to as the "opal capital of the world" because of the quantity of precious opals that are mined there. A blower truck ...

in South Australia. The mine was previously owned by Termite Resources; a joint venture between ASX-listed IMX Resources and the Taifeng Yuan Chuang International Development Company. Cu-River Mining produced its first iron ore from Cairn Hill in 2016. In October 2017, the company announced that it would invest $800 million in expanding the Cairn Hill mine. Cu-River Mining has contracted JiuJiang Mining Australia (the Australian arm of the JiuJiang Group, China) to undertake infrastructure improvements at Cairn Hill. In May 2019, the future of Cu-River's operations in the

were called into question, following

national security National security, or national defence (national defense in American English), is the security and Defence (military), defence of a sovereign state, including its Citizenship, citizens, economy, and institutions, which is regarded as a duty of ...

concerns regarding its proximity to a restricted weapons and technology testing range. In January 2020 it was announced that Cu-River mining was withdrawing from Cairn Hill after its 270 million AUD expansion plan, though the company was still listed as the mine's tenement holders and operator in the project's 2020-21 compliance report to the Government of South Australia. Cu-River Mining's interests are represented to the South Australian parliament by the lobbying firm, Silk Road Commercial Pty Ltd. Silk Road has no other political lobbying clients on its books as of 2021.

Port Playford development

In January 2019, the company purchased the site of the former

Northern Northern may refer to the following: Geography * North North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating ...

and Playford A and B power stations at

Port Augusta Port Augusta (''Goordnada'' in the revived indigenous Barngarla language) is a coastal city in South Australia about by road from the state capital, Adelaide. Most of the city is on the eastern shores of Spencer Gulf, immediately south of the ...

, where it intends to construct a port for the

transshipment Transshipment, trans-shipment or transhipment is the shipment of goods or containers to an intermediate destination, then to another destination. One possible reason for transshipment is to change the means of transport during the journey (e.g. ...

iron ore Iron ores are rocks and minerals from which metallic iron can be economically extracted. The ores are usually rich in iron oxides and vary in color from dark grey, bright yellow, or deep purple to rusty red. The iron is usually found in the f ...

from its existing Cairn Hill mine, future iron ore projects Snaefell and Tomahawk, and potentially wheat and other commodities. The 1068 hectare property's existing 5 kilometre long rail loop and unloading facilities (previously used to unload and stockpile coal from Leigh Creek) would be utilised by the prospective port. An export capacity of 15 million tonnes per annum is anticipated by the company, with scope to increase to 50 million tonnes. In 2020, Cu-River Mining signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Haviliah Resources, a prospective iron ore exporter with leases to mineral deposits in the Braemar region in South Australia. In January 2021, Port Playford received development approval from the South Australian government. Cu-River mining intends to use barges to transship ore onto Cape-sized vessels at the existing transshipment points in Spencer Gulf that were created for transshipment of iron ore from Whyalla. Work started on the port in August 2021, with the aim of first shipments in the second half of 2023. The first ore is expected to come from Cairn Hill mine (owned by Cu-River) and from Peculiar Knob mine (owned by Peak Iron).{{needs update, date=April 2024

References

Iron ore mining companies of Australia