Develop to drive Waihi North access: design and geotechnical notes for mine engineers
Reviewed by Tom Sullivan
First reported on International Mining – News
30 Second Briefing
Develop Global has secured a A$200 million, five-year underground development contract to establish access tunnels for OceanaGold’s Waihi North Project on New Zealand’s North Island, with mobilisation scheduled for the first half of 2026. The scope centres on creating new underground access to support future gold mining adjacent to the existing Waihi operations, implying significant lateral development and ground support in complex epithermal geology. The long lead time allows detailed mine design, equipment selection and geotechnical modelling before full-scale development starts.
Technical Brief
- Contract value of A$200 million (~US$132 million) sets a substantial underground development budget envelope.
- Scope is explicitly limited to establishing access tunnels, not full stoping or production activities.
- Five-year term implies sustained development crews, long-life equipment fleets and multi-year ground support regimes.
- Long pre-start window enables detailed geotechnical model refinement and sequencing of lateral drives and crosscuts.
- Similar long-lead access contracts are increasingly used on complex epithermal gold projects to de-risk early capital.
Our Take
With work on the Waihi North Project not commencing until the first half of 2026, Develop Global Limited is effectively locking in a medium-term project pipeline in New Zealand’s North Island, which can help smooth utilisation and workforce planning between its Australian and overseas contracts.
New Zealand has featured far less frequently than Australia or North America in our 396 Mining stories, so OceanaGold’s Waihi North work stands out as one of the relatively few North Island underground project contracts to reach this stage in our recent coverage.
Among the 785 tag-matched ‘Projects’ and ‘Contract Award’ pieces, most contract starts are within 12–18 months of announcement, so the longer lead time here suggests a more complex approvals, design, or access schedule for Waihi North than for many comparable mining contracts in our database.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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