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Australia

Carrapateena Mine

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Australia

Carrapateena Mine

Location: 63 km E from Woomera, South Australia, Australia

Regional Office:

10 Franklin St
Adelaide
South Australia, Australia
5000

Contacts:

Additional Resources for Suppliers & Investors

Categories

Summary

Mine TypeUnderground
StatusActive
Commodities
  • Copper
  • Gold
  • Silver
Mining Method
  • Sub-level caving
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SnapshotCarrapateena produces copper concentrate and is one of the largest mining projects in South Australia.

Ore at Carrapateena is collected from underground mine areas and processed through conventional crushing, grinding and flotation methods.

The successful commissioning and ramp up of Crusher 2 in Q3 FY2024 led to record material mined and concentrate produced.

As a part of Carrapateena Expansion, the bottom half of the Carrapateena orebody is being developed into a block cave, with the aim of unlocking the mine’s potential to be a multigenerational, low quartile cash cost producing operation.

Owners

SourceSource
CompanyInterestOwnershipInvestor's Info
BHP Group Ltd. 100 % Indirect
OZM Carrapateena Pty Ltd. (operator) 100 % Direct
BHP holds 100% ownership of Carrapateena.

On 2 May 2023 BHP Group Limited completed the acquisition of OZ Minerals Limited. The Carrapateena operation has been developed and operated by OZM Carrapateena Pty Ltd and OZ Minerals Carrapateena Pty Ltd, wholly owned by OZ Minerals Limited.

Contractors

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SourceSource

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.

Reserves

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Mining Methods

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Heavy Mobile Equipment

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Comminution

Crushers and Mills

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Processing

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Commodity Production

The production for 2023 includes Estimated data for the period from January 1, 2023, to June 30, 2023. Because of the acquisition of OZL by BHP on 2 May 2023, OZL reported production only for the first quarter of 2023:
• Ore tonnes mined: 877,178 t;
• Tonnes milled: 1,079,755 t;
• Copper concentrate: 40,504 t;
• Copper metal in concentrate: 15,080 t;
• Gold metal in concentrate: 19,868 oz;
• Silver metal in concentrate: 226,751 oz.

BHP reported production for two months – May and June 2023:
• Ore tonnes mined: 880 kt;
• Tonnes milled: 856 kt;
• Copper concentrate: 30.1 kt;
• Copper payable metal: 11.7 kt;
• Payable gold concentrate: 15,304 oz;
• Payable silver concentrate: 157 koz.

Further, unlike OZL, BHP changed its financial year for future reporting to run from July 1 to June 30.
CommodityProductUnits20242023202220212020
Copper Metal in concentrate M lbs  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe
Copper Concentrate kt  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe
Gold Metal in concentrate oz  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe
Silver Metal in concentrate koz  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe

Operational metrics

Metrics20242022202120202019
Annual milling capacity  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe
Ore tonnes mined  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe300,640 t
Tonnes milled  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe
Waste  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe1,352,765 t
Total tonnes mined  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe1,653,405 t

Production Costs

CommodityUnits202220212020
Credits (by-product) Copper USD  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe
Total cash costs Copper USD  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe
All-in sustaining costs (AISC) Copper USD  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe
C1 cash costs Copper USD  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe
** Net of By-Product.

Mine Financials

Units202220212020
Capital expenditures M AUD  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe
Revenue M AUD  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe
EBITDA M AUD  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe

Personnel

Mine Management

Job TitleNamePhoneEmailProfileRef. Date
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required Sep 6, 2024
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required Sep 6, 2024
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required ........... Subscription required ........... Subscription required Subscription required Sep 6, 2024
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required ........... Subscription required ........... Subscription required Subscription required Sep 6, 2024
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required Sep 6, 2024

Workforce

EmployeesContractorsTotal WorkforceYear
...... Subscription required 2023
...... Subscription required ...... Subscription required ...... Subscription required 2021
...... Subscription required ...... Subscription required ...... Subscription required 2020
...... Subscription required 2019

Aerial view:

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