Lady loretta

Although commercial mining on a full scale did not occur until midway through 2013, ore production at the Lady Loretta underground zinc mine in north west Queensland, commenced ahead of schedule, when the first load of zinc, lead, and silver ore was delivered to the Mt Isa processing plant in September, 2012. The early production went hand in hand with the ongoing development of the mine decline being undertaken by mining contracting company PYBAR on behalf of the mine owner, Glencore Xstrata, through its fully owned subsidiary, Xstrata Zinc Australia.

The Lady Loretta Mine at Mt Isa Employs Around 230 People
Full production at the Lady Loretta mine is of the nature of 1.2 million tonnes of ore a year, a figure that is increasing Xstrata Zinc's Mount Isa operations annual production by 20 percent. The Lady Loretta mine employs around 230 personnel in permanent jobs.

Lady Loretta Mine Produces High-grade Zinc
A significant benefit derived from the inclusion of Lady Loretta mine zinc into the company's overall zinc production is its higher grade zinc than that obtained elsewhere. This has improved the zinc quality being taken from the area in concentrate form.

The Lady Loretta highly mineralised deposit is host to an estimated 12.7 million tonne reserve that consists of 84 grams of silver a tonne, 4.8 percent lead and 14.2 percent zinc. The mine has an expected life of around 12 years.

Construction of the Lady Loretta Mine Began in 2011
The Lady Loretta mine is located 140 kilometres north west of Mt Isa in Queensland. Mine construction commenced in July 2011. It was originally planned to have ore production commencing by the end of 2013 but in mid 2012 Xstrata Zinc decided to speed up the development of the project by mining the upper ore bodies separately from the deeper underground resource.This move increased its annual ore production from a previous one million tonnes to 1.2 million tonnes.

Lady Loretta Mine ore is Crushed Onsite
Ore mined from the Lady Loretta mine is primary crushed on site before it is trucked to the Xstrata Zinc Mount Isa ore processing complex at Mt Isa for further treatment. When it reaches the processing plant it is blended with ore mined at the Handlebar Hill open cut, the Black Star open cut and the George Fisher underground mine.
The construction of infrastructure at the Lady Loretta mine undertaken by PYBAR included office buildings, stores areas, portal establishment, decline development and lateral development.

The Lady Loretta deposit was discovered in 1969 but it was not until April 2011 when Xstrata Zinc Australia obtained full ownership by acquiring the 25 percent previously held by its joint venture partner, before things got moving. The acquisition gave Xstrata Zinc the largest zinc resource in the world, totalling over 400 million ounces of zinc ore.

Xstrata Zinc has its world headquarters in Madrid, Spain. It is one of the world's largest zinc producers with a world wide annual zinc production of around one million tonnes. It has operations in Europe, America, Canada and Australia. It has processing and refining facilities in the United Kingdom, Germany and Spain.
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Note- GlencoreXstrata was formed following a merger of Glencore International and Xstrata, the merger was completed in May 2013. But a decision was made by the Company's shareholders during the annual general meeting and the announcement was made in May 2014 that Glencore will drop Xstrata and be simply known as Glencore.