OREANDA-NEWS. October 5, 2011. MMX,the EBX Group mining comapny, owned by entrepreneur Eike Batista,today (15/9) signed a contract with the Australian companyWorleyParsons,valued at BRD  255 million, for services related to engineering, procurement and management of the MMX Serra Azul Expansion project, which includes a new iron ore processing plant, a railroad terminal and a 10 kilometer long conveyor belt, which will connect the plant to the railroad terminal.

According to the terms of the contract, WorleyParsons will consolidate the basic engineering project, the executive project for the processing plant and management of the entire deployment of the project (auxiliary engineering facilities, procurement, civil engineeering work and electromechanical assembly work).

The expansion of the Serra Azul Unit will be one of the first mining projects in the country to adopt modularization, a technology that uses a modular process in the setting up of the plant. The modules are manufactured off site, allowing the construction and assembly activities to be developed in parallel. This technology allows for the optimization of the timeline and the concentration of labor.

For Roger Downey, CEO of MMX, the partnership with Worley Parsons, an internationally recognized company, underwrites the quality of MMX's projects. "The expansion of the Serra Azul Unit is currently our largest investment. We will inject over BRD  4 billion to more than triple our production capacity. This is a very innovative project, which includes the installation of the first processing plant for compact itabirite in Brazil. For this reason we choose our partners with great care, assessing the best portfolios in the world. It is with great satisfaction that we announce the hiring of Worley Parsons", stated Downey.

"We at WorleyParsons are proud to be part of this project. WorleyParsons is confident that its mining project expertise and technology, such as EPCM and Modularization, will meet the challenges of budget, schedule, quality, health and safety, and respect for the environment which are an integral part of the Serra Azul Expansion project," said Jose Ayres de Campos, CEO of CNEC WorleyParsons.