Ms D’Ambrosio was speaking at the official announcement of Gekko’s $70 million deal to provide the mineral processing plant for an Arctic Circle mining project on Monday. 

“It’s a fantastic success story, we’ve got Gekko Systems that has invested big time here in Ballarat, bringing froward the capability, the knowledge base, the smarts of advanced manufacturing,” she said. 

“It tells you manufacturing is alive and well in Victoria, in regional Victoria.” 

Gekko managing director Elizabeth Lewis-Gray also went into greater deal on the deal and the 40 new jobs it brings. 

She said they already hired 20 people and would keep on “a good proportion” of the 40 when the multi-year project ends.

The jobs are principally technical positions for engineers and metallurgists, but there will be some manufacturing roles, Ms Lewis-Gray said. 

“These are very technical people who have very deep skills and the more we can create that community here, then the stronger it becomes,” she said. 

“We’re doing the design work now and that will convert into the manufacturing, so the skill sets change as the goods get manufactured.”  

Ms Lewis-Gray said the deal would also open more doors internationally. 

“We are world-leading but we still need to show that to international markets,” she said. 

“(This project) helps us prove our world-leading skills which are around energy efficiency and low-height modular manufacturing.” 

Work has already begun on the gold processing plant. 

Hope Bay operator TMAC Resources estimated in an April feasibility report there was 20 years worth of gold in the mine. 

Ms Lewis-Gray said they would be working hard to meet the first delivery date of June 2016. 

The second shipment will be in June 2017. 

The delivery of the plant is made more difficult by the Arctic conditions, as it limits when ships can actually deliver Gekko’s technology.

The area sees minimum temperatures of almost  –60 degrees, meaning the systems will have to perform in a much greater range of conditions than those faced at other Gekko-supplied mines. 

Hope Bay has also had non weather-related challenges, with Newmont Mining mothballing its plans for the site in 2012 before selling it to TMAC. 

Ms Lewis-Gray said their technology had made a difference in the feasibility of the project, which is on to its third owner. 

“We have some really specialist skills in flow sheet development, particularly around pre-concentration, energy efficiency and the size of our footprint. Because it’s so cold, it has to be installed in a very small space, and that’s exactly our skill level,” she said.