Victor

The Victor nickel deposit was first accessed via a decline from the Long underground mine at Kambalda, in the Western Australian Eastern Goldfields Region, in 1992. Nickel bearing ore was discovered at the Long Mine in 1971 and the first ore production was extracted by means of a 971 metre shaft in 1979. Mining at that time was being undertaken with the use of airleg methods in the upper reaches of the mine whereas mechanised methods were used in the lower levels that included the Victor deposit. However, WMC Resources, the then owner of the mine, placed the mining of the Long and Victor ore-bodies onto care and maintenance in 2000.

Independence Group Acquired the Victor Nickel Deposit in 2002
In September 2002, the Independence Group acquired the Long and Victor mine and associated ore bodies, through its wholly owned subsidiary, Lightening Nickel Pty Ltd, with the mine being re-commissioned under the new ownership in October 2002. The Victor ore body that is located adjacent to the Long nickel deposit was initially worked by Lightening Nickel in conjunction with the mining of the Long deposit.

The Victor Orebody Created a Challenging Mining Activity
The biggest challenge facing development of the Victor and Long deposits was in mining the remnant ore bodies in a safe and efficient manner. This was because of the seismic history associated with the mine. For this reason the traditional room and pillar method was dismissed and as an alternative, a method using transverse sills butting into each other was favoured. To prevent the fill material from the first sill rilling into the adjoining sill it was decided to backfill the sills by pumping cement fill into the void.

Innovate Shotcrete Application Used at the Victor Workings
Shotcrete was already being used in dealing with many stress related environments in underground mining environments but its use in this innovative manner to allow complete extraction of a tabular section of the orebody at the Victor deposit was new to the industry. This innovation required a layer of shotcrete about 100mm thick to be sprayed on the up- dip wall of the first development sill. The sill was then able to be backfilled with normal waste and topped off with sand backfill. The following sill, slightly up-dip and alongside the first could then be mined along the shotcrete boundary wall. Taking wall stability into account, the idea was that the shotcrete wall would hold up and prevent the backfill waste from spilling over into the adjoining development.

Victor Orebody Not Currently Being Worked
Since the Victor and Long mines re-commissioning in 2002 the operation has produced 73,936 nickel tonnes from the mining of 1.88 million tonnes of ore grading at 3.9 percent nickel. Two major ore discoveries since then has been the Moran and Mcleay deposits. These two discoveries have boosted the company's reserve base and have the potential to extend the life of the Long mine to at least 2017, at a production rate of 9,000 tonnes a year of contained nickel metal. The Victor orebody is not currently being mined by Lightening Nickel Pty Ltd.

The Long nickel mine that includes the Victor orebody represents the second largest nickel concentration in the Kambalda region and it was WMC's longest operating nickel mine that had a life, under its ownership, of 21 years.