The Olympic Dam deposit is located some 600 km north of
Adelaide in South Australia. It was discovered in 1975 by
Western Mining Corporation and in 1979 a joint venture was
formed with British Petroleum for the evaluation and
development of the project. Studies were completed and
construction started in 1986 with the plant being commissioned
progressively between April and August of 1988. In 1993
Western Mining acquired BP's interest and are now owners of the
whole deposit. The scale of the initial development was 1.5 Mtpa
of ore for the production of 45 000 tpa of copper cathode, 900 tpa
of uranium oxide and some gold and silver. Two expansion
programs have occurred in 1992 and 1995 and current
performance is at the rate of 3 Mtpa of ore for the production of
84 000 tpa of copper cathode, 1500 tpa of uranium oxide,
24 000 oz per year of confined gold and 380 000 oz per year of
confined silver (Table 1). An aerial view of the plant is
shown in Figure 1. The benefit of diversifying into the production of more than
one product is undoubted and the flexibility of being able to
produce variable quantities of copper and uranium also allows
advantage to be taken of a change in market conditions.