Minerals

Olympic Dam world's largest uranium deposit and fourth largest copper and gold

Olympic Dam world's largest uranium deposit and fourth largest copper and gold
Olympic Dam mine has the world's largest uranium deposit, fourth largest copper deposit, fourth largest gold deposit with silver and iron among its mix.

Olympic Dam, 560 km north of Adelaide, is a colossal mine waiting for new technology to unleash its full assets a zone 600km long and 150km wide.

It has the world's largest uranium deposit, fourth largest copper deposit, fourth largest gold deposit with silver and iron among this mix.

Olympic Dam is already the site of Australia's largest underground mine, with a workforce of 3000 based at the nearby town of Roxby Downs.

BHP Billiton (who bought Olympic Dam from Western Mining in 2005) shelved plans for a $38 billion open-pit expansion in 2012 to look at a less costly approach. (The sediment covering the minerals is up to 1km deep.) It is now targeting an underground mine expansion to start producing in 2021-22 and ramping up to copper production to more than 450,000 tonnes a year by 2025. Likely to reach 200,000 in 2015-16.

This is double the 184,000 tonnes of copper Olympic Dam produced in 2013-14, but is well down on the 750,000 tonnes a year under boom-time plans for the world’s biggest open-pit mine.

BHP Billiton is testing technology such as heap leach that dribbles solvent into crushed rock containing the fruitcake mix of different minerals.

The ­upgraded production ­targets at Olympic Dam would make it the second-largest copper mine in the world after giving the uranium and gold output an equivalent copper value, and it would be the world’s largest producer of uranium.

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