BHP says it has growth projects planned for all of its South Australian copper operations

BHP’s failure to capture Anglo American’s South American copper mines means the company needs to push growth from its existing deposits in Australia.

BHP’s giant Olympic Dam mine in South Australia. Picture: Ben Clark

BHP says it has a growth plan in place at all of its South Australian copper operations, as the mining giant looks to lock in a plan to extend its output to 700,000 tonnes of copper equivalent production at its South Australian hub.

In Adelaide on Tuesday, Copper SA asset president Anna Wiley told the Copper to the World conference that BHP had now largely bedded down its $9.7bn acquisition of OZ Minerals, and was pushing ahead with plans to grow the operations.

BHP’s South Australian mines remained on track to meet its 310,000-340,000 tonne production guidance in the state, as the company drills out its promising Oak Dam discovery and continues to build OZ Minerals’ growth plans at the Prominent Hill and Carrapateena mines, she said. “In the coming years, we hope to make a final investment decision on an expansion of our existing copper refining facilities at Olympic Dam, to construct a two-stage smelter and associated refinery complex,” she said.

“This increase of smelting and refining capacity will enable us to process significantly more concentrate from across our Copper SA operations – accounting for variations in grade and copper/sulphur ratios. This has the ­potential to result in production of greater than 500,000 tonnes per annum of copper – and more than 700,000 tonnes of copper equivalent per annum when you include the by-products of gold, silver and uranium.”

Hitting that target would partly depend on the success of the multibillion-dollar Northern Water project, a partnership with the South Australian government, which will build a desalination plant and more than 600km worth of pipeline to service industry in the state, she said.

Other partners include Origin, Fortescue, Amp Energy. The project could add more than $150bn to the economy, she said.

Ms Wiley said the company’s exploration program included 13 drilling rigs at the discovery, with another six operating to explore the depths of the deposit at Olympic Dam, where the company has found improved grades of up to 2 per cent copper.

“It’s one of the amazing things about Olympic Dam – we haven’t found the bottom of it yet,” she told the conference.

Ms Wiley’s comments come only weeks after BHP walked away from its takeover bid for Anglo American, where its primary target was Anglo’s South American copper operations. BHP was still searching for new deposits to bolster its portfolio, however, with active exploration programs across South America, the US and in South Australia.

Originally published as BHP says it has growth projects planned for all of its South Australian copper operations