Name: Telfer mine.

Location: The Telfer gold/copper mine is located in the Great Sandy desert, in the East Pilbara region of Western Australia.

Controlling Company: Newcrest Mining.
Brief History: Telfer was originally discovered after Newmont had undertaken an intensive exploration and resource drilling programme from 1972 to 1975.

Telfer was then developed and operated by an unincorporated joint venture between Newmont Australia and BHP Gold until 1990, when Newmont merged with BHP Gold to become Newcrest Mining. Exploration and mining continued at Telfer until October 2000 when the operation was suspended, owing to oxide recoveries being exhausted.

Newcrest completed a comprehensive feasibility study in 2002, which established an optimum strategy for the mining and processing of ore from the surface and underground.

Construction of the new operation to exploit the primary deposits started in early 2003.

The Telfer openpit started production in 2004 and Telfer underground in 2006.

Brief Description: Telfer is a fly-in-fly-out operation. It com- prises the Main Dome and West Dome openpits and the Telfer underground mine. Telfer also has several other prospective gold and polymetallic deposits in the area covered by Newcrest’s existing mining and exploration tenements.

Products: Gold and copper.

Geology/Mineralisation: Telfer comprises mining leases that contain gold and copper mineralisation characterised as bimodal in nature, with relatively high-grade stratabound reefs and spatially associated lower-grade stockworks hosted within Proterozoic sediments.

Deep weathering depleted the copper in the upper sections of the orebody, while the underlying resource retained copper and gold content.
Reserves: Proven and probable reserves at the Tefler Main Dome openpit as at December 31, 2015, were estimated at 40-million dry tonnes, grading 0.63 g/t of gold, and 34-million dry tonnes, grading 0.091% copper. The West Dome openpit had 84-million dry tonnes, grading 0.68 g/t of gold and 0.058% copper. Telfer underground had 24-million dry tonnes, grading 1.4 g/t of gold and 0.28% copper.

O’Callaghans had 47-million tonnes, grading 0.28% copper.

Resources: Mineral resources at the Telfer Main Dome openpit were estimated at 62-million dry tonnes, grading 0.74 g/t of gold, and 56-million dry tonnes, grading 0.095% copper as at December 31, 2015. The West Dome openpit had 170-million dry tonnes, grading 0.65 g/t of gold and 0.057% copper. The Telfer underground had 110-million dry tonnes, grading 1.5 g/t of gold and 0.31% copper.

Other mineral resources account for 4.9-million tonnes, grading 1.3 g/t of gold, and 14-million dry tonnes, grading 0.37% copper.

O’Callaghans had 78-million dry tonnes, grading 0.29% copper.

Mining Method: The Telfer openpit is a hard-rock mining operation using conventional drill-and-blast and load-and-haul mining methods. The Telfer underground uses sublevel cave mining, with selective mining of the high-grade reefs.

Major Infrastructure and Equipment: The Telfer concentrator uses a dual train comminution circuit, followed by flotation and cyanide circuits. The process is complex, owing to the differing ore types that need to be accommodated.

Copper/gold concentrates produced on site are filtered to produce a dewatered concentrate which is trucked to Port Headland for export.

Prospects: Expansion of Telfer’s carbon-in-leach circuit to improve pyrite gold recovery is on track to be commissioned in the June 2016 quarter.

Contact: Corporate affairs.

Contact Details:
Newcrest Mining,
tel +61 3 9522 5333,
fax +61 3 9525 2996,
email corporateaffairs@newcrest.com.au, and
website http://www.newcrest.com.au.