Prominent Hill Mine

At the Prominent Hill Mine in South Australia, a new winder building was constructed to support a future shaft system designed to boost the extraction of materials from deep underground. The project took place in a remote and extremely demanding environment — the mine was located 800 kilometres north of Adelaide and was accessible only by all-weather gravel roads or by air. Temperatures could exceed 50°C, and strict site-access procedures made every operation more complex. 

VSL Australia was selected to drill, test and install deep permanent anchors to stabilise the new structure, providing essential foundations for the next phase of mine development. 

Using its permanent strand anchor system, VSL installed two 20-metre-deep anchors — a solution well suited to such an isolated location, where reliability and fast installation were essential. To minimise exposure to extreme heat, much of the preparation, including strand fabrication, was completed off-site. Materials and equipment were transported on twin trailer trucks to limit the number of deliveries to this remote site.