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REGIONAL NEWS - AUSTRALIA/OCEANIA
OZ Minerals Spending A$60 million at Carrapateena in 2012
Geologists examine drill core on site at OZ Minerals' Carrapateena copper/gold property in South Australia.
In its report for the quarter ended December 31, 2012, OZ Minerals said it will spend A$60 million during 2012 at its Carrapa- teena iron oxide copper-gold project in cen- tral South Australia, including expenditures for exploration but excluding funding for an exploration shaft now under consideration. OZ Minerals purchased the Carrapateena project in 2011 from private investor Rudy Gomez (58%), Teck Australia (34%) and various minorities (8%). The purchase price was $250 million. Further payments will be made on start of commercial production. The Carrapateena project is located 130 km from Port Augusta, South Australia, 100 km southeast of BHP Billiton's Olympic Dam operation and 250 km south- east of OZ Minerals' Prominent Hill opera- tion. The project is situated approximately 75 km from the Stuart Highway and is rel- atively close to the Adelaide-to-Darwin Railway, via which Prominent Hill concen- trates are currently transported. Investigations into the design, develop- ment and cost of a potential exploration shaft were advanced during the quarter and discussions with regulators began regarding permitting. Scoping studies for mining options, mining infrastructure (ventilation, materials handling and long-term access), site power supply, and water supply were
16 E&MJ; • FEBRUARY 2012
advanced during the quarter, and metallur- gical studies were begun.
The Carrapateena deposit, like Olympic Dam and Prominent Hill, is an iron oxide copper-gold deposit.
The 2012 exploration program will is mainly test the northern portion of the Carrapateena deposit, with the goal of bringing it into the inferred resource cate- gory. The area is considered to have the potential to host a further 25 million to 45 million mt. Some infill and extension test- ing of the inferred resources to the south will also be completed.
Sagittarius Encounters Tampakan Road Block Sagittarius Mines confirmed in mid-January that it had received notification from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) of the national govern- ment of the Philippines denying its applica- tion for an Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC) for the $5.9-billion, open- pit Tampakan mine project on Mindanao island, until issues with the use of open-pit mining methods have been resolved with the provincial government of South Cotabato. The project is situated on the boundaries of four provinces—South Cotabato, Sarangani, Sultan Kudarat and Davao del Sur—and is
based on one of the world's largest undevel- oped copper-gold deposits. The government of South Cotabato banned open-pit mining within the province more than a year ago. Sagittarius Mines is a joint venture of Xstrata Copper (62.5%) and Indophil Resources NL (37.5%). The joint venture holds a 40% controlling equity interest in the Tampakan project. Xstrata Copper is the operator. The 60% non-controlling equity shareholders are the Tampakan Mining Corp. and Southcot Mining Corp., known as the Tampakan Group of Companies. Sagittarius President Peter Forrestal said the company would immediately file an appeal for a reconsideration of the govern- ment decision as permitted under the ECC application process. "We are concerned that this decision was not made on the merits of our mine project environmental impact state- ment, which fully complies with the require- ments of the DENR's own ECC process and is backed by a world-class environmental impact assessment study," Forrestal said. "We believe this decision sets a prece- dent that contradicts the publicly stated views of the Aquino administration, name- ly that national laws that permit open-pit mining methods should have precedence over conflicting provincial ordinances. This lack of consistency by the national govern- ment poses a very real threat to investment confidence in the Philippines and intro- duces significant uncertainty to national government approval processes. It also hampers the project's potential to make what would be a significant contribution to the economic and social development of southern Mindanao and the Philippines." The Tampakan project is located approximately 40 km north of General Santos City in southern Mindanao. Based on current planning, the mine is projected to produce 375,000 mt/y of copper and 360,000 oz/y of gold in concentrate over an initial mine-life of 17 years, with signif- icant potential for mine-life extension. Estimated contained metal in total re- sources at Tampakan now stands at 15 mil- lion mt of copper and 17.9 million oz of gold. Subject to all necessary community, government, and shareholder approvals, Sagittarius estimates that production from the project could begin by 2016.
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