IGO Interactive Annual Report 2019

On 21 February 2019, Matt Spagnolo was acting Registered Manager at Nova when reports arrived of smoke and fire in nearby bushland to the south of the mine site. Initial inquiries led everyone to believe that it was a small bushfire that was under control. But only 24 hours later, unexpected changes in the weather caused the fire to jump the access road and the severity of the situation began to escalate quickly. Nova’s Emergency Response Team shifted from monitoring to active containment of the fire. IGO’s Crisis Response Team in Perth was also activated as the decision was made to evacuate all employees from the accommodation village. Evacuation was not a decision taken lightly, as this was a major disruption for everyone working on site. “Making that decision was the right thing to do and I was never in doubt,” said Matt. “The safety of our people will always come first.” Employees’ positive response and willingness to work together made things go smoothly. As people grabbed pillows, and blankets, and found a place to sleep, the ERT and the State Department of Fire and Emergency Services got to work alongside IGO contractor partners Barminco, CV Lomag, and Cater Care, to contain the fire and avoid a major crisis unfolding at Nova. Throughout the event, there was a clear sense of purpose about what needed to be done and everyone worked together focused on a unanimous approach to protect our people and our assets. “The leadership group who led the bushfire response has got to be the best team I have ever worked in,” Matt said. “The collaboration and how we all looked out for each other was an amazing experience, especially when you consider we were thrown together in a crisis.” Four days later the fire was successfully contained, everyone was safe and business returned to normal. CASE STUDY: NOVA BUSHFIRES PROCESSING The Nova Operation processing plant performed well in FY19, setting monthly production records three times in the second half of the year. The plant is now constrained by ore grades in the flotation section of the plant, with concentrate filtration capacity being closely matched to the flotation section. Borefields continue to have excess capacity, however dissolved iron and manganese in some bores has caused difficulties in the reverse osmosis plant. The tailings storage facility continues to be used as a water storage dam and water efficiency projects continue to reduce the requirements from the borefields. Electric power is provided by Zenith Pacific’s 20 MW power station. SMART SOLUTIONS At IGO, we continually look for ways to improve the way we do business and operational excellence is one of the keys to our success. Our teams are finding innovative ways of using technology and innovation to: improve the safety and wellbeing of our employees; reduce our impacts on the environment; deliver step change opportunities; and continue to improve efficiencies and productivity. We call these initiatives ‘IGO - Smart Solutions’. Smart solutions being deployed at Nova include the introduction of renewable energy; underground electric vehicles; remote surface blasting; drone technology; advanced machine learning; milling advanced process controls; efficient data capture; process and analytics; and surface automation for underground mining. In May 2019, Zenith Pacific began site construction on a 6.7 megawatt solar power station, with commissioning expected in the first half of FY20. The Nova solar project is a fully integrated commercial hybrid diesel-solar facility. It is expected the hybrid energy solution will reduce costs and carbon footprint, with approximately 15-20% of Nova’s total energy requirements to be provided by solar energy. IGO has also been investigating opportunities to electrify the underground mining fleet, with benefits including energy savings, reduction to ventilation demands, associated reduction in capital and operating costs, improved safety and working environment, and reduced carbon emissions. IGO is actively exploring proof of concept studies for complete electric underground mining and these preliminary studies will continue in FY20. In FY19, IGO also started incorporating drone technology into our Nova operations. This technology can assist with Run of Mill (ROM) pad and stockpile management, analysing environmental disturbance, and in emergency response situations such as a bushfire, or search and rescue efforts. Nova is the first underground mine in Western Australia to implement full network firing from surface. Benefits include enhanced safety of our personnel, more reliability and flexibility and improved reporting with analysis of data post-firing. Our focus on operational excellence will continue in FY20, with a range of areas to be further explored, including equipment productivity and tracking, additional automation and technology benefits and innovations to improve recoveries and efficiencies through technology that can reduce costs. NEAR-MINE EXPLORATION During FY19, IGO made significant breakthroughs in the interpretation of the 3D seismic dataset that covers the Nova Mining Lease. This resulted in the ability to predict the location of mafic and ultramafic intrusions that may host Ni-Cu sulphide mineralisation at depths exceeding 500m. Deep drilling through these targets confirmed the presence of thick (500m to 1,000m) mafic-ultramafic intrusions, similar in size and composition to the Nova upper intrusion, carrying widespread three-phase Fe-Ni-Cu sulphide disseminations and blebs. These large intrusions appear to be connected by, or are associated with, smaller tube-like ‘chonolith’ intrusions with a very similar mineral composition and blebby sulphides as the Nova intrusion. The 3D seismic dataset cannot definitively direct detect massive sulphide mineralisation, but it has enabled the 3D mapping of intrusive systems that potentially host such mineralisation, and the Company remains optimistic that significant massive sulphide mineralisation exists within these complex intrusive systems. IGO ANNUAL REPORT 2019 — 23