Overview

Mine Type	Underground
Status	Active
Commodities	Copper Zinc Lead Silver
Mining Method	Longhole open stoping Pillar extraction
Production Start	...
Mine Life	...
Snapshot	The Broken Hill Operations are principally comprised of three separate underground mining areas: Southern Operations; Potosi Operations; and North Mine. Broken Hill North Mine was placed under care and maintenance in 2023. Perilya Ltd. has not reported production data regularly since it was delisted from the Australian Stock Exchange in 2013. On Sept. 27, 2023, Hydrostor and Perilya have entered into a binding agreement to leverage the existing mining assets at Perilya’s Potosi Mine in Broken Hill to support the construction of the Silver City Energy Storage (SCES) Project. The Silver City Energy Storage (“Silver City”) Project is an Advanced Compressed Air Energy Storage project capable of 200 MW generation for 8 hours duration (1600MWh). Reserve capacity of 250MWh is set aside to provide backup power during network outages. It will act as an emission-free long-term grid reliability solution for Broken Hill.

Deposit type

• VMS

Summary:

The Broken Hill deposit lies within the Broken Hill Group of the Palaeoproterozoic Willyama Supergroup and consists of nine separate but closely related orebodies that are stacked within a single stratigraphic package in the Hores Gneiss of the Broken Hill Group.

The impression that the Broken Hill orebodies are all massive sulphides with little else has long been dispelled.

Not only can different styles of mineralisation be identified but the information also gives valuable insights into the ways the deposit has responded to deformation and also to the predeformation characteristics of the deposit and therefore its genesis.

Massive sulphides form only a minor part of each orebody and are most common in deformed regions of the lenses. Sulphide-rich mineralisation is more often coarsely banded by variations in gangue mineral and sulphide abundance. Each orebody contains a high percentage of gangue minerals, including primary calcite, calcium or manganese pyroxenoids or pyroxenes, or quartz, that are distributed through the mineralisation as discrete bands, layers and stratigraphic horizons. Sphalerite (marrnatite) is the dominant sulphide constituent of all ore lenses and the percentage of galena diminishes in each orebody from 3L to BL.

The Broken Hill Line of Lode is hosted by the upper Broken Hill Group of the Willyama Supergroup. The Line of Lode is an approximately 9.5km long, northeast – southwest striking, approximately boomerang-shaped orebody, with the “arms” plunging to depth. The Line of Lode consists of five major ore lenses (1, 2, 3, A and B Lenses) surrounded by a zone of disseminated mineralisation referred to as the C Lens. Typically, the upper lenses (2 and 3 Lenses) are lead rich, while the lower lenses (1, A and B Lenses) are zinc rich.

The geological setting of the North Mine is broadly similar to the rest of the Line of Lode, with each of the lenses occurring within the Lode. Mineralisation within the North Mine is typically associated with:
• Sphalerite (zinc sulphide);
• Galena (lead sulphide) with variable silver; and
• Tetrahedrite (copper antimony sulfosalt) with silver.

Typical combined grades of lead and zinc range from 5% to 40% within the high-grade zones, with silver grades between 50g/t and 400g/t in the galena rich lenses.

In November 2021, SKR undertook further mineralogical assessment of soils and materials at the Mine Site. SKR (2022) identified sulphur bearing minerals comprising the following.

• Sulfides – sphalerite and galena;
• Sulfates – anglesite, gypsum and Szomolonkite/gunningite; and
• Hydroxysulfates – jarosite, beaverite and beaudanite.

Mining Methods

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Comminution

Crushers and Mills

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Processing

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Production

Commodity	Product	Units	2022	2021	2020
Silver	Metal in concentrate	koz	....	....	....
Lead / Zinc	Metal in concentrate	M lbs	....	....	....
Zinc	Metal in concentrate	kt
Zinc	Concentrate	kt
Lead	Payable metal	kt
Lead	Metal in concentrate	kt
Lead	Concentrate	kt

Personnel

Job Title	Name	Phone	Profile	Ref. Date
.......................	.......................			Aug 28, 2024
.......................	.......................	...........		Aug 30, 2024
.......................	.......................	...........		Aug 28, 2024
.......................	.......................	...........		Aug 28, 2024
.......................	.......................			Aug 28, 2024

Employees	Contractors	Total Workforce	Year
......	......	......	2022
......	......	......	2021
......	......	......	2020