2010 Annual Report - Grange Resources

DECEMBER 2010 ANNUAL REPORT 9
Capability
Cash Flow
Review of Operations
Savage River and Port Latta Operations
Overview
The Savage River iron ore mine in north
west Tasmania has been in operation for
almost 43 years. The mine is an open cut
operation which produces an iron ore
concentrate by means of magnetic
separation. The concentrate is pumped
through an 83 km pipeline to Port Latta on
the north west coast where the majority of
it is pelletised and exported to customers
in Asia and sold to customers in other
parts of Australia. A relatively small
quantity of magnetite concentrate is sold
for use in the Australian coal washing
industry.
Mining operations
In June 2010, a rock slide occurred on the
Eastern Wall of the North Pit at the Savage
River mine site. An estimated 140,000
bank cubic metres of material fell onto the
pit floor, temporarily sterilising the ore
beneath it. As a result of the geotechnical
controls and standard operating
procedures in place, the area had been
cleared of personnel and no injuries were
sustained.
During the six month period ending
31 December 2010, Grange developed
mine plans to remediate the rock slide in
order to gain long term access to the main
ore zone for the balance of the life of mine.
A remediation cut-back, which was always
required but is being brought forward from
2012/2013, has commenced and once
completed, the strip ratio, quality, and
sales volumes will be very predictable.
The plan has been approved by Worksafe
Tasmania and the Grange Board.
Annualised ore and waste production
were lower than prior periods as a result
of production equipment being applied
to the development of less central ore
sources on the mining lease as the east
wall cut-back is undertaken. Mining rates
increased towards the end of the period
as four additional Caterpillar 789 trucks
were introduced to the fleet. Five older
785 trucks are scheduled to be
refurbished in the first quarter of 2011,
bringing the fleet to capacity in order to
complete the east wall cut-back and, at
the same time, mine ore from alternate
sources in accordance with the
remediation plan.
Providing
operational
capabilities
and cash flow
Above:
Bruce Hutchison
- Principal Engineer
at Savage River.
DirectorS’ Report
Financial Statements
Shareholder information