Opening of Major Open Pit Gold and Copper Mine in South America.

An Australian-Canadian consortium of mining companies employed a United States constructor to design and build a major open pit mining operation in an isolated, mountainous location in a South American country which had not seen construction of large mining infrastructure for a considerable number of years due to international business concerning regarding local political instability. The project included open pit, storage areas for ore and overburden, crusher, transport and feeder belts, sizable ball and hammer mills, slurry pipes, cyclones, a concentrator facility with flotation tanks and settling basin, a large tailings facility with "leaky dam", native water protection, a lengthy slurry pipe, dewatering facility, dedicated train system (purchased through a government privatization program), and deepwater ship loading facility. Walstad Law Group helped the Owners to identify several critical sources of the cost overruns (amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars), and to pursue a two pronged course of action to:

• Identify the sources of the cost overruns
• Induce the United Stated design builder to commence and complete an comprehensive repair and correction program

Based on our team's identification of the sources and causes of significant cost overruns, the company was able to conclude successful negotiations and to recoup a sizable sum of money.

Perhaps more importantly, the Owners were able to induce the designer-contractor to redo its work so that the plant began to function profitably for the first time since construction.

If you would like to contact a Walstad Law Group attorney to discuss your mining-related project, claim or difficulty, click here.