The ASIA Miner - Reporting Important Issues to Mining Companies in the Asia Pacific Region
Issue link: https://asiaminer.epubxp.com/i/632337
8 | ASIA Miner | Volume 13 • Issue 1 | 2016 Road to Success Drilling at the nearby Kalkaroo copper-gold deposit, which is the primary target for Havilah at its South Australian tenements. CMC has guaranteed to have frst ore on the surface by July 1, 2016, al- though this could be brought forward. CMC has a 50-man camp, two Hitachi 250-tonne excavators, 13 Cat 777 haul trucks, two Cat 637 scrapers, two 631 water trucks, service truck, fuel truck, an 18-tonne crane, maintenance support, cement-foored container workshop, a 15x15 offce, an RO plant, satellite communication, and a 50-seat coach for transport to and from Broken Hill as the team operates on a 10 day on, fve day off roster. Steve Radford says, "We also have a couple of GPS-con- trolled Cat D10s on site that look after the waste dump and batter angles. The diggers are shifting between 13,500 and 15,000 cubic metres of dirt per shift per tractor. One of them also has a GPS which looks after the batter profles." After Portia Chris Giles said that Havilah had decided to fast track a feasibility study on the adjoining North Portia deposit to determine whether it could be developed immediately after mining fnishes at Portia. "It is a completely different deposit – a primary copper-gold sulphide de- posit that forms a palaeo hill in bedrock under the surface just north of the Portia pit. It is a cigar-shaped deposit with 50 metres of clay overburden on top but it contains100,000 tonnes of copper and 235,000 ounces of gold at good grades. We think it is the primary source of the Portia deposit but two-thirds of it requires sulphide processing. Because the size doesn't warrant a standalone plant we had planned to truck ore to Kalkaroo after we built a plant for the much larger sulphide deposit located there. "Steve suggested that as we already have the infrastructure in place, including camp, equipment and tailings storage, we should consider mining North Portia immediately after Portia. We then decided to seri- ously look at the possibility of mining the top one-third, oxidized part of the deposit which can more than likely be treated at Portia. It con- tains about 4 million tonnes of soft oxidized material containing quite attractive copper and gold grades. This can be mined before the hard sulphide material which requires grinding and conventional sulphide processing. Steve also suggested cutting into the ground between the two deposits, running a conveyor system between the two and placing the North Portia overburden into the Portia pit, which could considerably reduce the waste mining costs. "We are now looking at the feasibility and economics of proceed- ing in this manner. As Kalkaroo is a much bigger, long-term project, mining North Portia oxidized material will create more cash fow to enhance the economics of proceeding with Kalkaroo." "North Portia was not high on Havilah's priority list until I started looking at the logistics and could see that it could be mined next," Steve Radford says. "Chris seriously considered my ideas and ob- tained Havilah Board approval to carry out a fast-tracked feasibility study into the economics, which includes some further drilling and metallurgy work. If all goes well mining could take place from Oc- tober 2016. "We will help take Havilah from junior explorer to junior miner and will help it get some cash fow allowing it to grow into the next two projects. This also takes CMC to the next level with cash fow and feet expansion while giving us more horsepower for other opportunities that come along. If we deliver, we are confdent Havilah will take us with them to their next project, and hopefully beyond. "My vision is of a long-term relationship that extends to North Por- tia and then Kalkaroo, which can offer a 25-year mine life and pro- vides a major boost for Broken Hill. There are 50 new jobs at Portia and there could be 250 at Kalkaroo."