The Rocklands Group Copper Project comprises multiple sub-parallel striking orebodies that occur within a 2.1km long x 1.2km wide shear zone. The orebodies will be concurrently mined predominately from 2 adjacent large pits, that will eventually merge to become a single super-pit should the mine life be extended beyond the currently planned Phase-1, 10 year mine plan.
Initial mining is concentrating on the Stage-1 Las Minerale Pit argeting Las Minerale orebody.In addition to the +20%Cu oxide/sulphide DSO being mined, mining of native copper fDSO to commence shortly
Some 500,000 tonnes of ore has been mined to date and stockpiled for processing.
A second and concurrent mining campaign will soon commence at the Rocklands South Pit (RS1 Pit), utilising excess capacity of the Rocklands Mining Fleet, not currently being utilised at the LM1 Pit.
Preliminary ground work has already commenced including clearing of vegetation and topsoil at the Le Meridian and Rocklands Central orebodies, and clearing and removal of topsoil and waste rock at Rocklands South.
As communicated by the Company over recent years, and as observed to date from mining activity, copper grades from mining appear to be significantly higher than indicated in the mining schedule.
Drilling and sampling is one thing, but mining is a reality.
The majority of ore mined to date contains native copper, which will be extracted via the worlds largest Cu gravity circuit (built by German process metallurgical group Alljig). The Gravity circuit has been specially designed to recover Rocklands style native copper, which is characterised by coarse, large agglomerates that break up relatively easily when crushed, and smaller walnut to pea sized fractions that dominate both
clay and fresh-rock matrix. Fine fraction native copper, down to 1mm in size will be recovered via the gravity circuit.
The balance of product will continue from the gravity circuit to the remainder of the Process Plant.
The gravity circuit combines several gravity processes including continuous jigs, spirals and tables.
Native copper ore (native copper contains 99.8% Cu) constitutes ~25% of all ore to be processed through the Rocklands Process Plant in the first 10 years, and will be predominately sourced from a 180m deep, up to 40m wide, continuous and pervasive native copper zone that is also associated with large quantities of chalcocite (chalcocite contains 79.8% Cu).
The majority of ore to be processed at Rocklands however will be primary ore, including chalcopyrite and minor bornite (chalcopyrite contains 34.6% Cu and bornite contains 63.3% Cu) representing between 60-
Page 7
Figure 7: Executive Chairman Wayne McCrae admiring the rock-breaking of near solid cuprite and chalcocite boulders weighing up to 6 tonnes each. Left; detail of rock in hand showing near solid cuprite (cuprite contains 88.9% Cu) and
native copper (native copper contains 99.8%
70% of all ore to be processed.
In addition, larger than expected high-grade oxide copper zones have been discovered that commence literally from surface. Due to the conservative use of upper limits on surface mineralisation during resource modelling, significant discounts are applied to potential oxide bearing ore zones at or near surface, in places severely discounting its presence down as far as 10m or more below surface.
Mining to date is revealing large zones of high-grade oxide ore that were not included in current mining schedules.
It has become extremely exciting at the Rocklands Project in recent weeks, with mining revealing extremely high-grade primary mineralisation over wide areas for the first time.
The Rocklands Mineral Process Plant is progressing well, with all major components in place and numerous teams of contractors plugging away at completing the myriad of tasks required.
As recently announced, directors of China State owned Sinosteel Corporation, the EPC Contractor for the
process plant, visited the project last weekend, among other things to be briefed and updated on the progress of the process plant.
Time reveals everything
In 2006 I predicted that the Las Minerale orebody contained ore that would rival some of the richest ever mined. Recent mining is suggesting this statement is being realised as we mine some of the highest grades of primary, native copper, chalcocite and oxide copper ores I have seen in my 35 years of mining copper.
On behalf of the board.
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