Rox Resources Signs 10-Year Hybrid Power Deal for Youanmi Mine

Pacific Energy mobilised to the Youanmi site before the ink on the power contract was dry. One of the most consequential infrastructure decisions for a developing Western Australian gold mine has moved from study to steel in the ground, and the deal that Rox Resources signed tells a specific story about how remote mine power is being solved in 2026. For junior gold developers, remote power has historically been the silent killer of project economics: diesel-only setups inflating all-in sustaining costs and exposing operators to fuel price volatility across the entire mine life. The Rox power purchase agreement with Pacific Energy represents a different approach, using a four-component hybrid station funded and operated entirely by the power provider. What follows covers exactly what Rox signed, how the hybrid configuration works, what it means for project economics, and why this deal type is becoming standard for remote WA mine developers.

What Rox Resources and Pacific Energy actually signed

Rox Resources has entered a 10-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) combined with a Build-Own-Operate (BOO) model with Pacific Energy for the Youanmi Gold Mine. The distinction matters: Pacific Energy funds, constructs, owns, and operates the hybrid power station. Rox buys electricity under contract.

The facility itself is a four-component hybrid station with confirmed specifications:

The four components are designed to interact as a single integrated system:

• The 25 MW thermal plant provides reliable baseload power and responds to processing demand peaks.
• The 26 MWdc solar fleet carries a significant share of daytime load, materially reducing fuel burn during sunlight hours.
• The 9.3 MVA battery system smooths solar intermittency, absorbs excess generation, and reduces inefficient cycling of the thermal plant.
• The 2 MW diesel backup sits in reserve for contingency rather than serving as a primary fuel source, limiting exposure to volatile diesel prices.

Pacific Energy’s mobilisation to the Youanmi site was already underway as of August 2026, placing this agreement firmly in the execution stage.

How hybrid power changes the cost equation at Youanmi

A decade ago, a remote gold project like Youanmi would have defaulted to a diesel-only power setup. The costs were high, volatile, and compounded over the mine life. Every movement in diesel price fed directly into all-in sustaining costs per ounce.

Rising electricity costs for mining operations have sharpened the strategic case for long-term contracted power, as operators face the double pressure of grid tariff increases and diesel price volatility eating into per-ounce margins across commodity cycles.

The hybrid configuration Rox has locked in targets that problem at its root. Pre-feasibility modelling for Youanmi showed that a gas, solar, and battery hybrid could deliver approximately one-third of the station’s energy from renewables, producing a levelised cost of electricity (LCoE) in a competitive range.

Pre-feasibility modelling indicated an LCoE in the high-20 cents per kWh range for a hybrid configuration at Youanmi, the key metric anchoring the project’s power cost competitiveness against diesel-only alternatives.

The PPA takes that modelling from study to execution at a larger scale, and the 10-year fixed tariff provides cost certainty precisely when it matters most: during the capital repayment window, when the project must prove its economic case.

Three financial advantages sit at the core of this structure:

• Capex stays off Rox’s balance sheet. Pacific Energy bears the capital cost of building the station.
• Reduced fuel consumption. Solar and battery capacity displace a material portion of thermal fuel burn, lowering the per-kWh cost.
• Locked-in tariff certainty. The fixed-term PPA neutralises diesel price volatility as a variable in Youanmi’s operating cost profile over the mine life.

For investors assessing Youanmi’s per-ounce economics, the power cost is no longer an open variable. It is a defined, contracted input.

What a Build-Own-Operate power deal means for a developing gold project

The BOO model works on a straightforward principle: the power provider funds, constructs, owns, and operates the station for the duration of the contract. The mining company buys electricity at an agreed tariff. It does not carry the power station as a capital asset and does not manage its operation.

This is a materially different risk profile from a mining company funding its own power infrastructure. Under a self-build model, the developer must raise additional equity or debt to cover the power station’s construction cost, manage procurement and construction risk, and carry the asset’s maintenance burden alongside its core mining operations.

The BOO structure sits within a broader set of capital access strategies for junior miners that have emerged to reduce upfront equity requirements, including streaming, royalty finance, and project-level debt, each shifting different risk categories off the developer’s balance sheet.

Under the BOO model, those risks transfer to the power provider, in this case Pacific Energy, whose core business is building and operating exactly these facilities.

How the capex structure changes Rox’s funding task

For Rox Resources, the practical effect is that the capital that would have been absorbed by a self-funded power station can instead be directed toward the processing plant, underground development, and tailings infrastructure, the elements that determine whether the mine produces gold on schedule.

The final investment decision for Youanmi was taken in March 2026. As of August 2026, the project has moved into its execution phase, with bulk earthworks underway and the BOO power contract cleared to proceed as part of that decision package. The power station’s capital sits on Pacific Energy’s books, not Rox’s.

Why Pacific Energy is the right counterparty for a 10-year remote mine commitment

A 10-year BOO commitment at a remote site is only as credible as the company delivering it. Pacific Energy’s track record answers the implicit investor question of whether this power plan is deliverable or merely contracted.

Three dimensions of counterparty value are relevant:

• Operational track record. Pacific Energy has delivered build-own-operate hybrid power solutions to multiple WA miners, including multi-site agreements with Westgold across the Bryah and Murchison operations, replacing diesel plant with integrated gas, solar, and battery stations.
• LNG logistics capability. Pacific Energy has institutional knowledge of trucking LNG to remote sites, a capability already factored into Youanmi’s pre-feasibility modelling via gas trucked from the Mid-West LNG hub.
• Financial depth for a decade-long commitment. A credible, well-capitalised power partner reduces the risk that lenders or equity investors treat the power solution as an open variable in the project’s bankability assessment.

The presence of a counterparty with demonstrated experience in similar climatic and logistical conditions is a positive signal for the deliverability of the power plan, not merely its contractual existence.

The Youanmi deal as a marker of where remote WA mine development is heading

The Youanmi PPA is a single deal, but it sits within a clear structural shift. A decade ago, a stand-alone diesel solution would have been the default for a project in the Murchison. The economics no longer support that assumption.

Falling costs for solar PV and battery storage have made renewables-heavy hybrids the economic default for new mine developments, particularly in sun-rich regions like the Murchison, where the solar resource base reinforces the logic of leaning on renewables for industrial power. The BOO model removes the capital barrier that might otherwise prevent junior developers from accessing these configurations.

The shift away from diesel is visible across multiple WA projects, with remote mining power infrastructure evolving toward gas-anchored hybrid configurations that reduce both fuel costs and carbon exposure, a transition that Onslow Iron’s LNG-based setup illustrates at scale.

WA power system reforms, analysed by Hamilton Locke in July 2025, are specifically designed to reduce complexity and accelerate the integration of new renewable generation and storage, creating a policy environment that actively supports hybrid configurations like the one Rox has contracted at Youanmi.

For investors, the key takeaway is that Youanmi’s power risk has shifted from open to resolved: the mine has a defined, scalable, and cost-competitive power plan with confirmed specifications, a 10-year contract, and an experienced operator delivering it.

Investors tracking junior gold development in Western Australia can apply the same framework elsewhere in the pipeline. The question for any remote project is no longer whether hybrid power is feasible, but whether the developer has locked in a credible provider, a competitive tariff, and a contract term that matches the mine life. At Youanmi, all three are in place.

A power deal that does more than keep the lights on

The Pacific Energy PPA is an execution-stage milestone, not a planning document. Mobilisation is underway at the Youanmi site, and the deal structure removes power as a development risk for the project.

The agreement delivers value on three fronts: cost competitiveness through a hybrid design that displaces diesel with solar and battery capacity; capex relief through a BOO model that keeps the power station off Rox’s balance sheet; and operational certainty through a 10-year contract with a counterparty that has demonstrated capability in remote WA mine power.

With power resolved, the next set of value-creating milestones at Youanmi shifts to construction progress, processing plant commissioning, and first gold production. The power station is no longer an open question. It is a defined input in the project’s investment case.

WA gold project development milestones beyond power include resource growth, metallurgical test work, and feasibility progression, and the Comet Vale project’s resource expansion trajectory shows how rapidly the resource base underpinning a project’s investment case can evolve during the development phase.

This article is for informational purposes only and should not be considered financial advice. Investors should conduct their own research and consult with financial professionals before making investment decisions.