Century Mine was a large
open cut zinc
Zinc is a chemical element; it has symbol Zn and atomic number 30. It is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a shiny-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed. It is the first element in group 12 (IIB) of the periodic tabl ...
,
lead
Lead () is a chemical element; it has Chemical symbol, symbol Pb (from Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a Heavy metal (elements), heavy metal that is density, denser than most common materials. Lead is Mohs scale, soft and Ductility, malleabl ...
and
silver
Silver is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag () and atomic number 47. A soft, whitish-gray, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. ...
mine at
Lawn Hill, northwest of
Mount Isa in
North West Queensland
The Gulf Country or North West Queensland is the region of woodland and savanna grassland surrounding the Gulf of Carpentaria in north western Queensland and eastern Northern Territory on the north coast of Australia. The region is also ca ...
, Australia. It was Australia's largest open pit zinc mine. Discovered by
CRA Limited, mining was initiated by
Pasminco
Pasminco was an Australian mining company founded in 1988. It was placed in voluntary administration in September 2001 with its assets sold in stages until 2004 when the remaining assets were spun-off to Zinifex.
History
Pasminco was establi ...
, continued by
Zinifex
Zinifex was an Australian company that operated lead and zinc mines, refineries and a lead smelter. It was established in April 2004, when the assets of Pasminco were spun-off. In 2008 it merged with Oxiana to form OZ Minerals.
History
In S ...
, then
OZ Minerals and then
MMG Limited who mined the project until closure. The property was then owned by
New Century Resources who were bought by
Sibanye-Stillwater in 2023. The mine is in a phase of tailings reprocessing.
History
The Century zinc deposit was discovered by
CRA Limited in 1990 on
Waanyi land. Development of the mine commenced in 1997.
The mine began open-pit production in 1999.
Open-pit mining was completed at Century in August 2015, with final processing of Century-sourced ore occurring in November 2015. The last ore to be processed at Century was 450,000 tonnes that had been mined as part of the Dugald River mine's stoping trial, and then trucked to Century. The processing of this ore was completed in January 2016. The final shipment of zinc concentrate was exported from
Karumba in late January 2016.
During its 16 years of operation, Century was one of the largest zinc mines in the world, producing and processing an average of 475,000 tpa of zinc concentrate and 50,000 tpa of lead concentrate. Mill tailings generated from 16 years of operations from the Century open pit forms a
Proven Reserve of 77.3 million tonnes at 3.1% zinc-equivalent, for 2,287,000 tonnes of contained zinc.
, an Australian base metals development company, restarted Century Mine operations from August 2018 extracting zinc from the tailings.
[
]
Operations
Zinc and lead concentrates are exported via the port at Karumba on the Gulf of Carpentaria
The Gulf of Carpentaria is a sea off the northern coast of Australia. It is enclosed on three sides by northern Australia and bounded on the north by the eastern Arafura Sea, which separates Australia and New Guinea. The northern boundary ...
. The zinc ore is especially prized because of its low iron content, producing a high quality clean zinc concentrate that is keenly sought by the world's zinc smelters.
See also
* List of mines in Australia
* Mining in Australia
References
External links
Century Deposit Summary Report
Century
{{coord, 18, 43, 32, S, 138, 36, 27, E, region:AU_type:landmark_source:kolossus-frwiki, display=title
North West Queensland
Surface mines in Australia
Zinc mines in Queensland
Lead mines in Queensland
1997 establishments in Australia
2016 disestablishments in Australia