The Carrapateena operation in South Australia.
BHP had plenty of news in its June quarterly, including first production results from the newly acquired Prominent Hill and Carrapateena mines in South Australia.
The major miner also revealed annual production records at Western Australian Iron Ore (WAIO), the Olympic Dam operation, and the Spence copper mine in Chile.
This is particularly significant for Olympic Dam, with the historic mine enjoying a new lease on life after overcoming years of operational hurdles.
Olympic Dam produced 212,000 tonnes of copper in the 2022–23 financial year (FY23). This is a 54 per cent increase from FY22 (138,000 tonnes), a year when BHP conducted major smelter maintenance at the mine.
Spence, which forms part of BHP’s Pampa Norte operations in northern Chile, boosted its annual copper production to 240,000 tonnes, supported by increased throughput from the Spence concentrator.
Prominent Hill and Carrapateena produced 8000 tonnes and 12,000 tonnes of copper, respectively, across two months of production since BHP acquired the mines in its acquisition of OZ Minerals.
BHP has grouped Olympic Dam, Prominent Hill and Carrapateena together under the banner ‘Copper South Australia’, and the company hopes to produce between 310,000–340,000 tonnes of copper from the mines in FY24.
Integration activities saw small volumes of copper concentrate from Prominent Hill transported to Olympic Dam for processing.
WAIO continues to fire on all cylinders, producing a record 257 million tonnes of iron ore in FY23 – a 1 per cent increase from FY22.
“WAIO shipped record volumes on the back of productivity in its supply chain, rail network and car dumpers, while South Flank completed its deployment of autonomous haul trucks in May and is on track to ramp up to full production in the next 12 months,” BHP chief executive officer Mike Henry said.
BHP saw average prices for its copper, iron ore and metallurgical coal markets reduce year-on-year in FY23. Nickel prices remained stable, while thermal coal prices were higher, driven by a buoyant first six months.
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