Mine to Market November-December 2012 - Mount Isa Mines

Crushing facility
in full swing
Commissioning of Xstrata Zinc’s new state-of-the-art
$35.5 million crushing facility has been completed at George
Fisher Mine, with the plant now fully operational.
Around 40 per cent of
zinc-lead ore crushing
conducted in Mount Isa will
now be relocated to the
new multi-million dollar facility.
Brian Hearne, Chief Operating
Officer Xstrata Zinc Australia, said after
almost 18 months in construction,
the facility is now eliminating double
handling of ore from George Fisher
Mine and supporting Xstrata Zinc’s
growth plans in Mount Isa.
“Moving zinc-lead crushing out
of town ultimately means we have a
purpose built facility at George Fisher
that will lower operating costs, reduce
our consumption of diesel fuel and
reduce emissions from our operations,”
Brian says.
“It is a critical piece of supporting
infrastructure to our expansion project
at George Fisher. We’ll be producing
30 per cent more ore here when the
expansion is complete and all of it
will be crushed here on site at this
new facility.”
Prior to the construction of the
crushing facility, excess tonnage from
George Fisher which was not able to be
crushed in town was put through three
mobile crushers manned by Xstrata
employees and contractors.
“These mobile crushing facilities
were resource intensive, maintenance
heavy and were high unit cost
operations,” he says.
“The new facility adopts the
most advanced techniques in dust
suppression while also lowering the
cost of crushing by 30 per cent.”
The crushing facility is designed to
reduce primary crushed ore of about
200 millimetres to a product of around
16 millimetres.
The crushed ore will be fed directly
to the Heavy Media Plant (HMP) in
Mount Isa prior to processing in the
nearby Zinc-Lead concentrator.
During peak construction of the
new crushing facility, an additional
workforce of around 100 people was
engaged, with about 50 per cent
sourced locally.
Around 10 full-time operational
positions have been created as a result
of the new crushing facility.
The majority of equipment used for
construction of the new crushing facility
was designed and built in Australia.
“It is a critical piece of
supporting infrastructure
to our expansion project
at George Fisher. We’ll be
producing 30 per cent more
ore here when the expansion
is complete and all of it will
be crushed here on site with
this new facility.”
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