Anthill copper mine set to come online in early 2021

Privately-owned Australian company Austral Resources aims to kick off mining at its Anthill copper deposit north of Mount Isa in early 2021, after purchasing it from Chinese-owned CST Minerals last year. The project is set to deliver a real boost to the local employment market and inject much-needed funds into the economy, the new owners say. Managing director Shane O’Connell said the company was on target to award the tender for the mining contract of Anthill by the end of next month. The road haulage and crushing contracts associated with the new project are also expected to go out to the market for tender bidding. Anthill will sit alongside Austral’s current Lady Annie Operations and is approximately 40km from the existing heap leach and SX/EW processing facilities. Mr O’Connell said a 70-strong workforce was already employed at Lady Annie and, with the new Anthill project just around the corner, the outlook for a serious uplift in the local labour market was a given. “Not only will there be employment opportunities directly through Austral but also indirectly through various contractors jumping onboard the project,” he said. Anthill is expected to come into production as the Austral Resources team wind down the remnant mining campaign which they have been conducting at the existing Lady Annie and Brenda pits since February 2020. Austral’s current campaign has resulted in a production rate of about 300 tonnes of copper cathode per month, and Mr O’Connell expected it to escalate to about 525 tonnes a month around December this year. The processing ramp-up will set the scene for the commencement of ore stacking from Anthill, with an expected lift in output to about 1000 tonnes of LME grade A copper cathode per month. “The remnant mining campaign has generated cash flow while allowing us to get the workforce on the ground and iron out any bugs before we break dirt at Anthill,” Mr O’Connell said. Austral Resources acquired Lady Annie and its associated tenements from CST Minerals in July last year. “When we purchased Lady Annie it was practically in care and maintenance,” Mr O’Connell said. “Our predecessors had completely scaled back production to only treating low-grade stockpiles, which only just kept the doors open.” New owner Dan Jauncey has taken a ‘lean and mean’ approach to turn the site around. “Since taking over ownership, we’ve been re-optimising and mining in the existing pits as well as doing some cutbacks. We’ve shifted about one million tonnes of ore and waste (up to the end of July 2020),” Mr Connell said. “We’ve changed quite a few things since we’ve been out there. We now have a highly skilled technical team bolted in and we’ve been fine-tuning how we conduct our processing. “Our internal team’s work with CSA Global to reoptimise the pit shells for Anthill has effectively doubled the positive value of the project.” Mr O’Connell said some aspects of the current operation had also been streamlined, such as cutting out unnecessary double-handling at the RoM pad by hauling ore straight to the heap leach facility. A mining study conducted with CSA Global has outlined a production schedule where the Anthill project will mine and treat 3.71 Mt of ore at a mined grade of 1.08 per cent copper over a 30 month mine life – with the processing aspect stretching over 60 months. Austral is also actively engaged in progressive rehabilitation at the current Lady Annie site and Mr O’Connell said the remnant mining team would transition to rehabilitation once the mining contractor for Anthill was onboard. In addition to a tight Austral Resources technical team that would also remain at the operation, he said North Line Copper would continue to provide processing services. “They have been there for over 10 years. With their assistance we have been able to generate a fair amount of copper in a short amount of time with some fairly low-grade ore that we found in the existing pits,” Mr O’Connell said.

Anthill copper mine set to come online in early 2021

Industry Queensland

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