The closure of zinc mines in Australia and overseas is pushing...

The closure of zinc mines in Australia and overseas is pushing up the price of zinc, which has already risen 60 per cent this year to around $US2,240 a tonne.
That makes zinc, which is primarily used to galvanise steel with a protective coating, the best performing base metal of 2016.
Heron Resources is planning to return a landfill site in Woodlawn, New South Wales, to its former life as a zinc mine.
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Managing director Wayne Taylor said the timing was right to go ahead with the development, but thought the price needed to rise around another 30 per cent to bring new mines into production.

"Zinc has suffered a profile issue, positioned behind copper in the base metals complex," he said.

"It's not that well understood by the investor base and it really hasn't featured from a pricing point of view since 2007, only to be hit by the GFC, since then it's largely been out favour as an investment," Mr Taylor said.

"Given that there hasn't been a strong price, there's been no projects that have really been pushed through the development pipeline.

"Currently we're in a position where there's a supply deficit and very few projects have the capability of being brought online anytime soon."

The Woodlawn mine was operated for 20 years before closing in 1998 and in 2004 it became a landfill site for waste from Sydney.

Given its history, Mr Taylor said a lot of infrastructure was already in place to help bring the mine on quickly once full funding was raised.

"It includes a sub-station for New South Wales grid power for us to hook into and a lot of mine site roads," Mr Tower said.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-05/zinc-copper-price-surge/7690040