Great Cobar

The Great Cobar Project involves the development of a satellite base metals and gold deposit, north of, and accessible from, the New Cobar mining complex at our Peak Mine.

Copper mineralisation was discovered at the Great Cobar deposit in 1870 and mined from 1870 to 1919. Modern exploration drilling intercepted significant copper-gold and zinc-lead-silver mineralisation outside the historic mine workings with copper mineralisation identified at depths of 1,000m below surface.

We initiated a Prefeasibility Study (PFS) to examine future mining scenarios at Great Cobar. The PFS findings justify an economically viable and relatively low risk brownfield mine development that will provide baseload feed to the Peak process plant for at least five years. It will also enable establishment of underground drill platforms to further unlock the upside potential of our copper-rich Great Cobar deposit.

The PFS demonstrated that initial mining and processing of Great Cobar is expected to take place over an approximate five-year life (400-500ktpa) and deliver a total of 47kt copper and 61koz gold. The deposit will be accessed using two parallel declines from the New Cobar workings and requires a new surface exhaust shaft and underground primary ventilation fan. Ore will be extracted by longhole stoping methods and hauled to the Peak process plant to produce copper-gold-silver concentrate and gold-silver doré.

Following completion of the PFS, a maiden Ore Reserve of 840kt at 2.0% Cu, 1.0g/t Au and 4g/t Ag was released for the Great Cobar deposit. This outcome continued a consistent trend of Ore Reserve growth from our Cobar Basin assets.

Extensional drilling from the proposed underground workings is expected to deliver significant opportunity to further upgrade and extend the existing Mineral Resource, expand the initial mining area and discover potentially economic mineralisation outside the known extents of the deposit.

In April 2022, we received development consent for the New Cobar complex, which includes Great Cobar, from the NSW Department of Planning and Environment.

Great Cobar long section