Sirius Minerals Yorkshire Polyhalite Project Tunnelling Contract

ongoing

Sirius Minerals Plc. has hired the European construction group STRABAG SE to build an approx. 13 km tunnel section for the underground transport system of the Woodsmith Mine near Whitby, England. The design-and-build contract was signed on 28 March. The Woodsmith Mine will begin extraction from the world’s largest deposit of polyhalite, a mineral used in the production of fertilizer, in 2021. The section to be built by STRABAG is part of a 37 km tunnel with a diameter of 4.7 m for an environmentally friendly conveyor system to transport the mined polyhalite to Wilton for processing. The STRABAG contract also includes the construction of a tunnel ramp as well as the tunnel portal at Wilton. The actual tunnelling works will cover the distance from the Wilton portal to a shaft at Lockwood Beck, with 150 m to be built via cut-and-cover construction, 800 m through conventional tunnelling and 11,900 m using a tunnel boring machine. Site mobilisation is to begin immediately.