The Mount Norma Project is located approximately 40km southeast of Cloncurry and consists of three granted Mining Leases that cover a combined area of 48.5ha. High-grade secondary copper ore with significant silver credits (>25g/t Au) has been extracted from the Mount Norma copper deposit since 1903. The deposit at surface is up to 10m wide and has a strike length of 120m. Limited exploration has also targeted the primary zone, which remains open at depth. Preliminary estimates suggest potential for >300,000t of secondary copper ore averaging about 4% Cu to a depth of 60m below existing workings and in excess of 500,000 tonnes of primary copper ore grading 2-4% to a depth of 400m
CuDeco undertakes a mining and mineral processing operation which includes the following principle activities:
- Extraction of oxide copper ore via open-cut methods
- Processing of the ore via a acid heap leach and solvent extraction process to produce copper sulphate crystal
It is proposed to continue to expand the capacity of this project beyond its current levels of infrastructure and production capability.
Apart from minor extraction activities post 1903, a small gouging operation was conducted on during the 1984/85 period. This involved the removal of approxiately 5,000 tons of copper oxide ore from a small adit on the side of the hill. Following commencement of the current operations a further approximately 18,000 tonnes of oxide ore was removed to feed the new processing operations at Mt Norma in 2002 – 03, and the mining operation is currently in the process of stripping out approximately 300,000 tonnes of overburden with the aim of extracting a further ore bloc with a surveyed target of approximately 200,000 tonnes of oxide ore to be mined over a period of approximately two years. Some 80,000 tonnes of high-grade ore has been selectively extracted during the overburden stripping process.
The mine and processing operations operate under an Environmental Authority from the Queensland Environment Protection Authority. This requires regular sampling, reporting and upgrading of the site Plan of Operations as commercial and technical requirements change.
The mine and processing operations also operate under the regulations of the Department of Natural Resources, Mines and Water and regular visits from local officers are received.
The processing operations at Mt Norma consist of the following:
- Leach pads (or vats) with approximately 65 000 te of ore.
- Solvent extraction, crystallisation and drying plant of 10 tpd (tones per day) of copper sulphate pentahydrate(in dry powder form) capacity with the capability to be expanded to 20 tpd with only minor modification to the plant and manning.
- Generators and other services such as Refrigeration plant for the Crystallisation circuit and air supply.
- Water supply infrastructure which supplies water to Mt Norma from the old Mt Freda open-cut pit (17kms).
- Mobile equipment (including loader, excavators, water truck etc)
- Offices and camp for Operators.
Process operations more recently have involved installation of additional equipment and leach capacity to improve plant efficiencies and production capabilities. Currently the ore from four old small leach pads is being consolidated into one and a new 100,000+ tonne vat is being constructed to accommodate the high-grade ore about to be extracted from Mt Norma mine. To date approximately 25% of the contained copper has been recovered as final copper sulphate product. |
