3 years is not a long time to go from $4billion to...

3 years is not a long time to go from $4billion to $10billion....


OXIANA yesterday reported promising exploration results which bolstered hopes of increasing production rates and the mine life at its two Australian projects.

The base metals miner said exploration drilling at its Golden Grove mine in Western Australia and its $775 million Prominent Hill project, north of Coober Pedy in South Australia, had highlighted potential for "significant" expansion to mineral resources at both sites.

At Prominent Hill, which Oxiana managing director Owen Hegarty has long talked up as having the potential for an underground mine in addition to the open cut operation under construction, two diamond core drill holes hit wide intersections of copper and gold about 400 to 500 metres below the current resources.

Oxiana also intersected zinc and copper sulphides beneath the Scuddles mine at Golden Grove. The mine has been on care and maintenance since Oxiana purchased the Golden Grove operation from Newmont Mining last year. In the meantime, Oxiana has been mining the Gossan Hill deposit, 4 kilometres to the east of the Scuddles mine and plant.

The intersections under Scuddles were found 200 metres below a 1996 hole which returned 4m of 19.5 per cent zinc. Oxiana said the mineralised zone appeared to be at least 400m deep at Scuddles.

Oxiana spent about $US25 million ($31.7 million) on exploration this year and plans to allocate even more money next year.

It has devoted eight drill rigs to exploration programs at Golden Grove and Prominent Hill and has another 24 drill rigs at its Sepon copper and gold operations in Laos.

Last month Mr Hegarty told the Herald Oxiana was focused on incremental new sources of production from its existing operations, in addition to merger and acquisitions opportunities, in a bid to become a $10 billion company by 2010.