Freehill Mining to supply Cementos Melón

Australia-based Freehill Mining Ltd has secured a purchase order from Chile’s Cementos Melón with a gross sales value of approximately US$185,000. The purchase order is for the supply of material to Melón’s Coquimbo cement plant from Freehill’s 100 per cent-owned Yerbas Buenas project in Maule Region, Chile. The material will be delivered over a two-month period, likely to commence in mid-March 2024.

Although the volume and price secured per cubic metre under this purchase order has not been revealed, according to Freehill it represents the largest single purchase order secured to date since operations commenced at Yerbas Buenas under its new contractor in August 2023. Freehill’s local subsidiary company is also negotiating a longer-term supply contract with Melón for larger volumes to be delivered over multiple months. These negotiations are yet to be concluded.

Freehill has been developing new materials at Yerbas Buenas to help meet demand from local cement and construction companies currently engaged in large-scale infrastructure projects in this region of Chile. The acquisition of a state-of-the-art materials processing plant has also given customers increased confidence that Freehill can supply larger volumes of material to support these projects. 

“This purchase order with Melón marks the first step of a major scale-up of activities at Yerbas Buenas,” said Ben Jarvis, non-executive chairman at Freehill. “For the past six months, our focus has been to establish confidence with our customers so they regard Freehill as a dependable supplier that can deliver larger volumes of material needed for large infrastructure projects. Now that we have achieved this, we are ramping up supply and thus increasing revenue.”

Whilst the value of this purchase order is pleasing, we are confident that much larger orders will materialise very soon. As well, we will use the initial delivery to Melón as a catalyst to negotiate a longer term contract with them over an extended time frame. We anticipate having our larger plant operational at Yerbas Buenas by the end of this month.”