The Rasp Mine is located centrally within the City of Broken Hill and the leases occupy the central region of the historic Broken Hill Line of Lode orebody and incorporate the original mine areas that commenced operations in the 1880s and still contains substantial tonnages of un-mined zinc-lead-silver mineralisation.
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| Rasp Mine |
The mining activities will focus on the underground development and mining of the un-mined Western Mineralisation and Centenary Mineralisation and the high grade pillars that were left unmined from the Main Lode Orebody. The Mineral Resource as at 1 July 2009 is:
| |
Category |
'000 t |
Zn% |
Pb% |
Ag g/t |
Main Lode Pillars
|
Indicated
Inferred
|
1,294
2,317 |
10.0
12.2 |
9.6
11.1
|
243
251 |
Western Mineralisation
|
Indicated
Inferred |
5,400
4,500 |
5.2
4.5 |
3.9
3.0
|
47
37 |
Centenary Mineralisation
|
Inferred |
2,700 |
6.1 |
3.9 |
49 |
Zinc Lode
|
Indicated
Inferred |
151
141 |
11.6
9.4 |
6.6
5.1 |
73
76 |
| Total Mineral Resource |
Indicated
Inferred
Total |
6,845
9,658
16,503 |
6.2
6.9
6.6 |
5.0
5.2
5.1 |
85
92
89 |
The Ore Reserve as at 1 July 2009 is:
| |
Category |
'000 t |
Zn% |
Pb% |
Ag g/t |
Western Mineralisation
|
Probable |
2,650 |
5.5 |
4.1 |
46 |
| Zinc Lode |
Probable |
175 |
7.8 |
4.2 |
48 |
Main Lode Remnants
|
Probable |
344 |
8.9 |
8.7 |
207 |
| Total Mineral Resource |
Probable |
3,170 |
6.0 |
4.6 |
64 |
The underground development activities were suspended in June 2008 with the significant fall in commodity prices and subsequent global financial crisis. CBH Resources has now developed a staged approach to the development of Rasp Mine as outlined:
Approval has been received from Industry and Investment NSW and Broken Hill City Council for the mining and crushing of up to 120,000tpa of ore from the Rasp Mine for a 2 year period and to truck the material to the Endeavor Mine in Cobar, for processing. This initial mining will be focused on recovering high-grade ore pillars within the Main Lode with production anticipated to commence in second half of 2010.
Development approval is currently being sought to construct a 750,000tpa processing plant, associated infrastructure and TSF and the increase in underground production capacity to meet the processing rate of the plant. At full production the planned annual production will be 39,000 tonnes of Lead metal, 48,000 tonnes of Zinc metal and 2.3 million ounces of silver.
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