Overview

Mine Type	Open Pit
Status	Care and Maintenance
Commodities	Zinc
Mining Method	Truck & Shovel / Loader
Production Start	...
Mine Life	...
Snapshot	Skorpion Zinc has been under Care and Maintenance since start of May 2020, following cessation of mining activities due to geotechnical instabilities in the open pit. Activities to restart the mine are still in progress. Skorpion Refinery conversion – awaiting confirmation of power tariff to take the final decision before beginning on-ground execution in FY 2024.

Deposit type

• Sedimentary
• Volcanic hosted

Summary:

The mineral chemistry, ore textures and styles of mineralisation are discussed for each ore mineral. Both, the mixed sediment-/volcanic-hosted non sulphide ore body and the remnants of volcanic-hosted sulphide mineralisation are known from abundant drill core and recently exposed non-sulphide mineralisation in the open pit. Remnants of a primary sulphide mineralisation are mainly preserved in the felsic metavolcanic rocks and their hyaloclastic eqivalents, which structurally underlie the central portion of the supergene ore body at depth.

The felsic metavolcanic rocks are also exposed some hundreds meters west of the Skorpion open pit, displaying disseminated pyrite mineralisation or forming gossans. The most famous gossan, which is located west of the Skorpion ore body, is the so called 'discovery outcrop'.

Within the footwall of the Skorpion non-sulphide zinc ore body disseminated to semi-massive primary pyrite sphalerite mineralisation has been intersected at a depth of 250 m and 300 m, respectively, which features a 25-m-wide zone grading 0.6 % Zn and 0.35 % Cu.

For completeness it has to be mentioned that some minor primary sulphides have been found in metasiliciclastic rocks but also in marble in the northern extension of the Skorpion ore body about 1.5 km north of the Skorpion open pit, e.g. borehole SD104, at a depth between 550 m and 700 m in unaltered fresh equivalents of the Skorpion metasiliciclastic host rocks and marble, respectively.

Mining Methods

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Comminution

Crushers and Mills

Processing

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Production

Commodity	Units	2021	2020	2019	2018	2017	2016	2015
Zinc	M lbs	....	....	146	186	188	181	225

Operational metrics

Metrics	2020	2019	2018	2017	2016	2015
Ore tonnes mined	....	1,009,243 t	537,066 t	1,206,176 t	1,241,327 t	1,344,272 t
Annual production capacity	....		150,000 t of zinc metal	150,000 t of zinc metal	150,000 t of zinc metal