The project includes five lead deposits – Magellan, Cano, Pinzon in the Magellan Hill area, and Pizarro and Drake in the Finlayson Range south of the Paroo Station Mine. Other small lead mineral occurrences (i.e. Cortez) are present across the local area.

The Paroo Station Mine area contains remnant discontinuous outliers of the Yelma Formation (Earaheedy Basin), forming low hills surrounded by shales of the Maraloou Formation (Yerrida Basin). The informally-named Magellan Hill – a mesa of approximately 5 × 2.5 km rises 25–50 m above the surrounding alluvial plain. A relatively thin (up to 60 m) sequence of the Yelma Formation sediments unconformably overlies the Maraloou shale. The Yelma sequence includes a basal fining-upwards clastic sandstone-siltstone sequence that is overlain by a silcretized quartz-clay collapse breccia with relics of dolostones at the base of the unit. The Yelma Formation is overprinted by surficial massive silcrete several meters thick and a thin colluvial soil.

At the Pizarro and Drake lead deposits south of the Magellan Hill group, lead mineralization occurs in sediments of the Yelma Formation and the underlying Juderina Formation (Yerrida Basin) (Looi, 2010).

The Magellan Hill group of lead deposits – Magellan, Cano and Pinzon – are contained in a mesa outcrop with dimensions of 5 × 2.5 km, comprising the Yelma Formation which hosts the lead mineralization, the majority of which is contained in a quartz-clay breccia and sediment sequence up to 35 m thick. The mineralized unit is described as an upper quartz-clay breccia with fragments of completely silicified carbonate with relict stromatolitic structures, siltstone, and euhedral and colloform banded quartz in a white clay-rich matrix up to 35 m thick (Sibbel, 2009).

The Magellan deposit extends for approximately 1,600 m in a NNE direction with an average width of approximately 900 m and an average vertical thickness of economic mineralization of approximately 12 m.

The Cano deposit lies along a north-west axis, extending for approximately 850 m with an average width of 430 m and an average vertical thickness of approximately 7 m.

The Pinzon deposit comprises two zones of mineralization, one trending in an N–NW direction and the second on a north-east trend. Both zones intersect in a V-shaped body and are approximately 1,000 m long by 200 m wide with an average vertical thickness of 5 m.

The Gama deposit has now been shown to coalesce with the eastern flank of Magellan and further extends for 1,200 m in a north-easterly direction with an average width of 300 m and an average thickness of approximately 5 m.

The Pizarro lead deposit is located 7.8 km SSW of the Paroo Station Mine, occurring within the Finlayson Range, a prominent east–west trending series of hills comprised of rocks of the Juderina Formation. While small areas of sub-cropping Yelma Formation quartz-clay breccia occur in the Pizarro area, much of the unit is covered by loamy colluvium deposits (Looi, 2010).

The deposit main mineralized trend strikes NNE over a length of approximately 1,950 m, with an average width of 230 m. A secondary trend extending 620 m north-west bisects and offsets the main trend by 270 m in a sinistral fashion. The trends are interpreted to be primary mineralizing structures or fluid pathways, possibly faults related to Yerrida and/ or Earaheedy basinal rifting. A smaller mineralized body, 300 m in diameter, lies 850 m to the north-west of Pizarro.

The Drake lead deposit is located 11 km south-west of the Paroo Station Mine, in the Finlayson Range. The main mineralized trend strikes north-east for approximately 680 m and is 200 m wide. A secondary, diffuse and lower grade lobate trend arcs south-east from the northern limits of the main trends.

Ore at the Paroo Station Mine is extracted via drilling and blasting from a series of open pits on Magellan Hill. Excavators are then used to dig and load ore and waste into 85t haul trucks. Ore is mined concurrently from a number of faces to provide a homogenous blend to the concentrator, and ore is stockpiled and further blended on the run of mine (ROM) pad. Grade control is enhanced by testing every blast hole in the orebody and in the near vicinity of the ore body.

Short term planning is based on additional grade control drilling and sampling of blast holes ahead of mining. The waste dumps are located adjacent to the Cano and Magellan pits. The mining has been carried out to date by a mining contractor.

Ore is delivered to the ROM pad by haul trucks from the mine. It is separated into ore stockpile “fingers” and withdrawn by front-end loader and blended as required. Stockpiled ore is fed into the ROM bin over a static grizzly screen. Crushed ore is conveyed to a two-stage closed circuit grinding section. Primary crushed ore is fed directly to the semi-autogenous grinding (SAG) mill feed chute and ground in a SAG mill. Hydrocyclone overflow goes to the flotation feed surge tank, the underflow is divided with two thirds.

Existing Concentrator Modifications
Estimates of grinding power requirements are based on the comminution characteristics of the ore within the first 10 years of operation, although it should be noted that there is little difference in the work indices of the early years of operation. The ore becomes significantly harder in the later years of operation. Because the ore is also significantly bimodal in terms of ore hardness, the milling operation can be throughput-limited if significant silica pebble build-up occurs in the mills.

The preferred option to accommodate the hard component of the ore is to pebble port the SAG Mill and institute pebble crushing of the SAG Mill pebble product, to minimise the circulating load.

All open pit ore production from the Mine is processed through the Paroo Station Mine concentrator. Ore is processed through a conventional flow sheet consisting of the following main steps:
• Crushing
• Grinding
• Concentration of non sulphide lead-bearing minerals is carried out by sulphidising froth flotation.
• Lead concentrate product dewatering and handling.

Flotation concentrate is thickened to 67% w/w solids by two thickeners in series -6m diameter thickener followed by 9 m diameter clarifier with the clarifier overflow gravitating to the process water dam. Underflow from both thickeners is pumped to a thickened concentrate storage tank and then filtered to 8.5% w/w moisture. Final tailing is thickened to -48% w/w solids in a 16 m diameter high rate thickener with the underflow pumped in two stages to the tailings storage facility (TSF) and the overflow going to the process water pond for recycling.

While the mine is currently being kep ........