Broken hill

A major milestone in the rich mining history of Broken Hill, in the south west corner of New South Wales, is about to be made, with the major shareholder of the Broken Hill, zinc, lead and silver mine about to take up all remaining shareholding in the company, Perilya. The Chinese shareholder is Zhongjin Lingnan that currently holds 53 percent of Perilya shares. Perilya has welcomed the offer stating it is good news for the long term future of the mine.

New Chinese Owners of the Broken Hill Mine Give Workers Confidence
The takeover of the mine by the Chinese company is expected to give employees of the operation a certainty regarding their employment futures, as development plans can now be proceeded with without worrying about the provision of capital.

Perilya Acquired Broken Hill Mine in 2002
When Perilya acquired the Broken Hill Mine in 2002 it immediately increased production and extended the life of the mine for an extra six years based on known reserves. During the following eight years the Broken hill Mine produced 15 million tonnes of ore that contained 450,000 tonnes of lead and 800,000 tonnes of zinc metal. While doing this the mine also increased its ore reserves that resulted in the life of mine being extended beyond the 10 years it had been given at that time.

Broken Hill Mine Began Operations Over 120 Years ago
The Broken Hill Mine has been in production for more than 120 years, having been commissioned in 1885. During this time it has produced over 200 million tonnes of ore. The long history of the mine meant that when Perilya acquired ownership it inherited a well developed infrastructure that had the flexibility to operate at higher volumes through a range of ore sources. The mine also had many areas that remained relatively unexplored.

Broken Hill Tenements Cover 1.042 Square Hectares
The Broken Hill Mine has leases covering 1,042 square kilometres of prospective land surrounding the mine itself. These tenements include the mines; Southern Operations, the North Mine, the Pinnacles, Little Broken Hill and the Potosi Trend.

Broken Hill Mine Primarily a Lead and Zinc Concentrate Producer
The Broken Hill mine primarily produces two products, these being lead concentrate and zinc concentrate. These concentrates are known as premium course grained products of low complexity that contain about 70 percent lead in the lead concentrate and 50 percent zinc in the zinc concentrate.

The Broken Hill mine is an underground operation and when Perilya took over the mine in 2002 it began an equipment replacement program that contributed to increased productivity. Perilya also simplified the concentrator in order to improve the recovery ratio and quality of the concentrate product. The mining is undertaken using the longhole open stope method, although variations have been made to facilitate the extraction of the secondary resource held in pillars left in the mine from previous workings. Longhole stoping is used in 70 percent of the underground workings at the Broken Hill Mine. Pillar extraction accounts for 30 percent. The mine ventilation system consists of ten ventilation shafts connected one surface intake fan and three surface exhaust fans.
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