Southern Cross Electrical Engineering has won an $18 million contract with Rio Tinto to complete work at the Gove Peninsula refinery site in the Northern Territory.

The works are part of Rio Tinto’s rehabilitation of the North East Arnhem Land site, which includes isolating and re-routing electrical and hydraulic services to the refinery.

The Gove Peninsula operations are expected to finish in 2030 after supplying bauxite to the global aluminium industry for more than 40 years.

Rio Tinto is working with the Traditional Owners, the Yolngu people and other stakeholders to prepare for the site closure.

This includes using virtual reality technology to illustrate the rehabilitation process, giving insight into how the land will look in the future, giving Traditional Owners the opportunity to provide feedback.

Rio Tinto employs 300 people at the Gove Mine, which produced 12.5 million tonnes of bauxite in 2018.

The mine is one of the key operations that Rio Tinto is focussing rehabilitation efforts on, along with the Argyle diamond mine in Western Australia’s East Kimberley region and Energy Resources of Australia’s Ranger uranium mine in the Northern Territory.

Rio Tinto rehabilitated 24 per cent of the land it disturbed for mining in 2018.