Overview

Mine Type	Underground
Commodities	Copper Gold Silver
Mining Method	Sub-level caving Block caving
Production Start	...
Mine Life	2055
Shapshot	Carrapateena produces copper concentrate and is one of the largest mining projects in South Australia in the last decade. The Carrapateena cave safely propagated to surface at the end of CY2022 (prior to the acquisition of OZ Minerals by BHP), which was an important de risking event for the mine. Progress was also made on converting the bottom half of the Carrapateena mine from a sub-level cave to a block cave, with the aim of unlocking the mine’s potential to be a multigenerational, low quartile cash cost producing province. Significant progress was made during the 2022 year on enabling underground infrastructure, such as crushers and ventilation. The tailings storage facility main embankment Stage 2 lift was completed and a new regrind mill was commissioned.
Related Asset	Carrapateena Expansion Project

Deposit type

• Breccia pipe / Stockwork
• IOCG

Summary:

The Carrapateena Breccia Complex is located within the Olympic copper gold (Cu-Au) Province on the eastern edge of the Gawler Craton. It is hosted within Donington Suite granite and is unconformably overlain by approximately 480 m of Neoproterozoic sediments. Mineralisation and alteration are in the form of that seen at other large South Australian iron oxide copper gold (IOCG) deposits including Prominent Hill and Olympic Dam.

The Carrapateena copper-gold mineral deposit is hosted in a brecciated granite complex, with both bornite and chalcopyrite copper mineralisation present – the bornite being a distinct higher grade zone of mineralisation.

At deposit scale, the hematite breccia zone appears to be quite continuous, but its limits at depth are not yet well-defined. A subset of the hematite breccia zone contains significant copper mineralisation. Bornite-dominant and chalcopyrite-dominant zones appear as distinct clusters on scatter plots of copper and sulphur grades.

The mostly low-grade mineralisation in the north, east and at depth, is less continuous and has consequently been classified mainly as Inferred. Both the hematite breccia zone and the copper-mineralised zones are open at depth. The geological model is a near-vertical body of hematite dominated breccia hosted within altered granite.

The vast majority of copper and gold mineralisation within the deposit is hosted by hematite-dominated breccias with moderate mineralisation occurring within hematite altered granite breccias (Eastern Cu domain). Sulphides are the primary copper-bearing minerals in the Carrapateena Breccia Complex. Copper and gold mineralisation is structurally and chemically controlled, with subsequent alteration destroying mineralising structures. The most abundant sulphides are chalcopyrite, pyrite and bornite, and these constitute the majority of sulphides at Carrapateena. The less common sulphides are chalcocite, digenite and covellite, and in smaller amounts sphalerite and galena.

Gold mineralisation at the Carrapateena orebody is almost exclusively hosted by hematite altered breccias. Gold grains are usually very small (10 µm), and when seen in polished section, are often intimately associated with copper sulphides. Gold grains are commonly a combination of gold and minor silver (electrum).

Dimensions
The maximum extents of the Mineral Resource inside the A$25/t NSR cut-off shape are 710 m (X) x 940 m (Y) x 1,020 m (Z). The deposit geometry is generally pipe-like with the lateral extent decreasing with depth. The topographic surface over the mineralisation is at approximately 5100 RL. The depths from surface to the upper and lower limits of the Mineral Resource are approximately 480 m and 1,500 m respectively.

Mining Methods

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Comminution

Crushers and Mills

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Processing

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Production

Operational metrics

Personnel

Mine Management

Source

Job Title	Name	Profile	Ref. Date
.......................	.......................		Oct 26, 2023
.......................	.......................		Oct 26, 2023

Employees	Contractors	Total Workforce	Year
			2021
			2020
			2019