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Australia
A 1923 silver-lead ore discovery in Queensland, Australia, lead to the formation of Mount
Isa Mines and the development of one of the world's great mines. By the 1960s, Mount
Isa was the hub of a lead, zinc, silver and copper supply network, including smelting,
In 1970, MIM Holdings succeeded Mount Isa Mines but, while diversifying in the 1970s
and 1980s, management seemingly neglected Mount Isa. Revitalisation started in the late
1980s. The rising cost of processing Australian intermediates led MIM to withdraw first
from copper and then lead-zinc smelting activities in Europe. These, plus improvements
at MIM's coal operations, encouraged Xstrata to make an offer for the Group which took
Xstrata has widespread ferroalloy, zinc and coal interests, to which it added world-class
nickel and copper assets with its take-over of the Canadian company, Falconbridge, in
2006.
George Fisher mine. The ore mineralisation is stratiform, occurring in the 1,600 million-
year-old Lower Proterozoic Urquhart Shale sequence. At Mount Isa, the sequence is 1km
thick and dips at 65. The orebodies lie within the upper 650m and are bounded by the
Mount Isa fault on the west and by volcanic greenstones to the east. Comprising galena
and sphalerite with pyrite and pyrrhotite, the lead-zinc-silver orebodies are concordant
with carbonaceous dolomitic sediments, interfingering with the silica-dolomitic mass
hosting copper. Over 20 ore zones are mineable, each up to 1.4km long by 800m deep
As of mid-2005, Xstrata reported that the underground Isa lead mine had proven
reserves of 0.4Mt grading 5.9% zinc, 4.7% lead and 140g/t silver, and measured
resources of 1Mt at approximately 7.3% Zn, 6.3% Pb and 180g/t Ag. The Black Star
open-pit mine is based on reserves of 23.9Mt grading 5.1% zinc, 3.1% lead and 60g/t
silver. Outside the Black Star project, the Mt Isa area has an open-pit mineable resource
The Isa mine, concentrator and crude lead-smelting operation started in 1931. Today's
lead mine has one 1,144m-deep shaft (R62) providing the main service access to nine
levels between 611m and 1,076m below surface and skip ore hoisting from the crushing
system on Level 20. Two rail systems, one on Level 15 and the other on Level 19, dump
ore and waste to the crushing station. Level 19 trains also haul from the X41 copper mine
to crushing stations at the base of the U62 hoisting shaft. In 2002, MIM installed a
Large stable sections are open-stoped from sub-levels; below, weaker parts of the
hanging wall slices up to 12m wide and 250m long are mined by bench stoping, which
replaced cut-and-fill in the early 1990s, reducing costs and increasing productivity. MIM
reserves, started production early in 2005 and yielded 1.4Mt of ore by the year-end.
ORE PROCESSING
The present lead mine concentrator was built in 1966 with rod and ball milling, lead-silver
flotation, zinc flotation and low-grade middlings recovery circuits. In 1982, MIM added
included column cell flotation. To process the George Fisher ores, Isa increased the
plant's capacity to 2.5Mt/y in mid-2000, adding ISAmills for ultra-fine regrinding and
improving the cleaner flotation and thickener operations to increase the recoveries,
subsequent refining at the Northfleet refinery in the UK. Zinc concentrates are currently
plants.
PRODUCTION
Performance improved again in 2005. The mines delivered 4.78Mt of ore, of which 4.4Mt
11.36Moz of silver in crude lead. The cash cost after by-product credits was US$0.329/lb
of zinc.