Whundo

The intermittant mining at Whundo is principly determined by the world copper price. Although the deposits are rewarding they are rather scattered. The owners of the leases at Radio Hill, south east of Kurrutha in Western Australia, Fox Resources Limited, have 900 hectares at their disposal and the best thing going for the Whundo deposit is its reasonably close proximity to the Radio Hill processing plant, 10 kilometres to its north. This helps to make mining of the deposit more economical than similar deposits that don't enjoy that type of luxury, when the copper price is right.

For instance, in 2007, Whundo Mine produced 12,000 tonnes of ore graded at 27.4 percent copper. A review and consolidation process has been carried out with a resulting improved knowledge of the areas geological make up. This will no doubt make for better planning of ongoing exploration activities.

West Whundo Beat the GFC

One of the latest approvals, to cash in on high copper prices at the time, occurred in 2005, before the advent of the Global Financial Crisis in 2008/09. It was granted for the development of West Whundo mining a measured resource of 556,000 tonnes averaging 2.5 percent copper, 3.3 grams a tonne silver and 1.4 percent zinc.

The West Whundo open pit mine began production in June 2006 with the intention of later underground mining of a higher zinc grade ore. The record prices these ores were attracting at that time went a long way towards getting the project off the ground.

Roche Mining Win Contract to Develop West Whundo Mine

Roche Mining received the contract to develop the West Whundo open pit project in 2006 using a Komatsu PC 1250 hydraulic excavator and three CAT 777C dump trucks. This equipment managed to remove between 500,000 and 700,000 tonnes of material a month. Mining of this project was completed in just five months after producing more than 8,000 tonnes of contained metal in ore that was processed at Radio Hill.

At the same time open cut mining was taking place at West Whundo, Fox Resources Limited were completing a scoping study targeting a reserve of 1,300 tonnes of contained copper and 3,700 tonnes of contained zinc in an underground operation that was to start via a portal at the bottom of the open pit.

On completion of the West Whundo open pit it was also planned to expand the old Whundo pit by using Roche Mining Contractors and their equipment. This was required to tap into an indicated mineral source of 32,000 tonnes containing 1,700 tonnes of copper and 2,500 tonnes of zinc in contained metal.

Heap Leaching of Stockpiles at West Whundo Open Pit

In May 2009 Fox Resources Limited began exploring the potential of heap leaching stockpiles of ore at the Whundo Mine in order to generate a cash flow. It had a stockpile of 300,000 tonnes at the Whundo Mine that could support a five year heap leaching project. These stockpiles contained copper supergene tailings and oxide copper ore with both graded at between 1.5 and 2.0 percent copper.

Fox Resources Limited intend to remain focused on zinc and copper production at West Whundo until they complete an upgrading of the Radio Hill facility that would allow it to process ore from their Scholl and Radio Hill nickel mines.