Peak Mine

Our Peak Mine is located in the northern Cobar Basin, south of Cobar in central-west NSW. The current operation commenced production in 1992.

We completed the purchase of Peak from Toronto-listed miner, New Gold in April 2018. Accelerated mining of the high-grade polymetallic Chronos deposit enabled investment payback on the A$59 million purchase price to be achieved within four months.

The operation comprises two separate polymetallic underground mines and an 800ktpa base metals and gold processing plant. The plant is supplied with gold-copper and gold-lead-zinc ores from several active underground mining areas that use open stope mining with backfill. Thickened tailings are pumped for deposition to an engineered tailings storage facility.

The processing facility enables the treatment of different polymetallic ore types to produce separate copper, lead, and zinc concentrates. Ore is processed in campaigns based on the nature of the polymetallic mineralisation mined from the different orebodies.

Drilling at Peak Mines is currently focused on further extensions of the existing orebodies, including the Kairos and Peak North deposits, and testing the potential high-value line-of-lode targets.

The Peak Mine has benefited from a number of Aurelia’s growth and efficiency projects. These include an upgrade of the process plant to increase lead/zinc metal production and maximise base metal revenue, scaling of production rates to maintain the supply of higher margin ores, accelerated access to the high-grade Kairos deposit and direct control of underground mining activities.

Regulatory compliance reporting

Follow this link to view all compliance regulatory reporting for the Peak Mine.

Production performance

METALUNITFY21 PRODUCTIONFY22 PRODUCTION
GOLDoz57,08040,322
SILVERoz333,551263,546
COPPERt4,7203,726
LEAD t15,82913,441
ZINCt10,79112,273

Site Operations

Peak Mine snapshot

100% Aurelia Metals Limited.

Polymetallic underground mine and processing facility.

Cobar, Central West NSW.

800ktpa.

Mineral Resource and Ore Reserve

Mining

  • South Mine access via shaft access and a boxcut and decline from surface.
  • North Mine access via the New Cobar open pit and decline.
  • Ore sourced from multiple deposits including Chronos, Perseverance Deeps, S400 and Kairos at the South Mine and Jubilee at the North Mine.
  • Open stoping with a combination of loose rock fill and cemented rock fill.
  • 60-70 stopes extracted per year.
  • Core underground mining activities performed by Aurelia with support from specialist contractors.
  • Underground ore crushing and shaft hoisting at South Mine, with ore trucked from up to 1.6km deep to crushing station at 630m depth.

Processing

  • Primary crusher (underground), SAG mill, ball mill, gravity gold and intensive leach, base metals flotation and gold CIL circuits plus three concentrate filtration facilities.
  • Campaign treatment of gold-copper and gold-lead-zinc ores.
  • Significant upgrade completed in February 2020 to allow recovery of separate lead and zinc concentrates by flotation.
  • Grid connections for power and water supply.
  • Products: gold and silver doré, copper concentrate, lead concentrate and zinc concentrate.

Maintenance

  • Progressive structural steel replacement program.
  • Shaft and winder asset improvement projects.
  • Strategic asset management plan implementation to underpin asset reliability improvements.
  • Most fixed and mobile plant maintenance performed by Aurelia with support from specialists in Cobar and regional centres.

Sales and logistics

  • Doré transported and sold to domestic refineries.
  • Concentrates transported 95km by truck to Hermidale rail transfer facility for export through Port Botany (Sydney) and Port of Newcastle.
  • Concentrates are marketed to international traders.