Asian Mineral Resources has secured underground mining equipment that will allow it to make a rapid start to the primary production decline at the Ban Phuc nickel project in Vietnam.

The company has also expanded its mining team at Ban Phuc.

The mining equipment is high quality used equipment sourced from Western Australia and includes a twin boom drill Jumbo, two 32 tonne underground trucks, a general purpose IT, 1700 loader and associated spares.

The equipment has been refurbished to operational-ready status and is being shipped to Vietnam. The company is also sourcing the additional drill jumbo and loader required to support later development of the secondary development portal.

Asian Mineral Resources has also bought an underground diamond drill which will arrive in Vietnam this month to be utilized in drilling initial planned ore production areas to upgrade the feasibility study drilling of the massive sulphide vein to stope definition status. There are existing adits into the Ban Phuc ore body that allow access underground to carry out this work.

Additional expatriate appointments have been made in Vietnam reporting to Ban Phuc general manager Rob Guest. Jeff Carr has been appointed commercial manager, Graham Kerr site construction manager, and Girvan Jackson underground mining superintendent who will directly manage the stope definition drilling.

Jeff Carr is an accountant with more than 20 years experience in development and operation of mines. Graham Kerr is a civil engineer with more than 30 years of international experience operating on major projects throughout UK, Africa and South Asia. Girvan Jackson has more than 20 years of hands-on experience as a plant operator, miner, supervisor and manager specializing in recruitment, training and operations development of national underground work forces.