PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Copper miner Sandfire Resources on Thursday confirmed that it had temporarily suspended development of the Conductor 4/5 decline at its DeGrussa mine, in Western Australia, owing to increased water flows.
The miner said in a statement that the increased water flows occurred at the location of underground drill holes, which had been completed as part of a long-term water management programme for the underground mine at DeGrussa.
Sandfire said that dewatering capacity had been increased to match the level of the water inflows and activities have also started to seal the drill holes and reduce water inflow, to enable development activities to restart.
It was expected that the development of Conductor 4/5 would restart by the end of the December quarter.
The decline is being developed to provide access to the Conductor 4 and Conductor 5 deposits, which are not scheduled to contribute to mine production until the 2016 financial year.
Sandfire pointed out that all underground ore feed was currently sourced from the DeGrussa and Conductor 1 deposits and the DeGrussa concentator is continuing to process run-of-mine stockpiles.
Mining activities in the Conductor 1 and DeGrussa orebodies have been temporarily put on hold, until early December, as a precautionary measure, however, the miner did not expect to change its production guidance for the 2015 financial year.