Prominent Hill

Key Statistics

The Prominent Hill copper-gold deposit was discovered in 2001 by Adelaide based Minotaur Exploration Limited and has been the stand-out green fields discovery of the decade in Australia.

Prominent Hill is located 650km north-west of Adelaide and 130km south-east of the town of Coober Pedy in South Australia. In 2003, Oxiana entered a staged-earn in with Minotaur.  On 25 August 2006 Oxiana's Board of Directors formally approved development of the Prominent Hill copper-gold mine.

Ongoing exploration of the deposit and completion of a scoping study continued to indicate the high quality of the deposit, and OZ Minerals Limited moved to 100% ownership in early 2005 through acquiring Minotaur and spinning off the non-Prominent Hill assets into new company Minotaur Exploration Limited (MEP).

Prominent Hill operation summary

The Prominent Hill operation is comprised of an open pit mine, a grinding and flotation processing plant with an 8mtpa capacity, a permanent village and a haulage road, power line and bore field. An underground mine is currently under development with first production scheduled for the first quarter of 2012. Prominent Hill is a fly-in/fly-out operation employing approximately 800 employees and contractors.

Prominent Hill produces some of the world's highest grade copper concentrates. These concentrates travel directly to customers including smelters in Asia and Europe via the Adelaide to Darwin railway (which passes within 116km of the Prominent Hill mine) to the deep, uncongested Port of Darwin and then via ship to the waiting smelters – all in about 12 days. Export shipments are also planned from the Port of Adelaide. Concentrates are also transported by road to local customers.

Production

First production of Prominent Hill copper concentrates occured in February 2009. (See announcement: First production from Prominent Hill copper-gold operation ).

In its first full year of production in 2010 Prominent Hill exceeded expectations producing 112,171 tonnes of contained copper and 196,400 ounces of gold. In 2011 copper production of 107,744 tonnes and gold production of 160,007 ounces were in line with guidance of 100,000 tonnes to 110,000 tonnes of contained copper and 150,000 ounces to 160,000 ounces of gold.

In 2012, copper production guidance for the year has been maintained at 100,000 tonnes to 110,000 tonnes with gold production expected to be between 130,000 ounces and 150,000 ounces. 

Ankata underground mine

In 2010 the Board approved construction of the Prominent Hill Ankata underground project. Development of the project commenced in November 2010. Ankata is a high-grade Resource located 800 metres away from the Malu open pit. The higher grade ore from the underground mine is expected to contribute an average of 25,000 tonnes of copper and 12,000 ounces of gold production each year for five years. The underground phase will enable OZ Minerals to continue to maximise the value extracted from Prominent Hill.

Mining of the underground will be via sub-level open stoping techniques. The ore has similar metallurgical characteristics to that in the open pit and the material can be blended with the open pit feed for processing.

The project remains on schedule to provide first ore from stoping in the first quarter of 2012. The underground operation will ramp-up over 2012 and is anticipated to reach its full 1.2 million tonnes per annum mining rate in the third quarter of 2012.

Exploration

OZ Minerals is exploring around the Prominent Hill area for further copper-gold deposits. OZ Minerals has access to a large and highly prospective 7,000 kilometre square tenement package in its own right and through its joint venture with IMX Resources.

OZ Minerals has committed to spend $70 million to exploration on near mine and regional exploration in 2012.

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