The zinc, lead and silver miner today announced a 28% and 8% increase in the ore reserves and mineral resources respectively from Broken Hill.

The ore reserve, which only applies to the Southern operations, now stands at 12.86 million tonnes containing 6% zinc, 4.5% lead and 48 grams per tonne silver, up from 10.02Mt at 6.1% zinc, 4.5% lead and 47gpt silver in 2008.

The measured, indicated and inferred resource for Broken Hill now stands at 20.86Mt containing 9.4% zinc, 7.4% lead and 92gpt silver.

The Perth-based company said that, based on the ore reserve, a new life of mine for the Southern operations had been developed which extended the production life at current mining rates to over 10 years.

The life of mine plan also reflects higher production rates than forecast in last year’s plan – supporting market guidance of 120,000-130,000t of contained zinc and lead per annum.

In addition, mineral resources outside of the reported ore reserve could be converted to ore reserves at a later date, which would potentially extend the life of mine at Broken Hill.

“Last year Perilya set itself two tasks with the release of the reserve and resource statement,” Perilya managing director Paul Arndt said.

“These were to reduce our net cash costs to under US60c per pound and to mine in a sustainable way to replace ore reserves as we mined.

“I am pleased to report that with the achievement of a net cash cost for the September quarter of US38c per pound and the addition of 28 per cent to the reserve base, we have well and truly achieved these goals.”
Arndt added that the company’s task going forward was to make sure this improvement was sustained and to progress the expansion opportunities at Broken Hill.

Since Perilya purchased the Broken Hill deposit in 2002, some 12.9Mt of ore has been mined for 1.3Mt of contained zinc and lead.

Contained zinc and lead metal within the ore reserve is currently 1.35Mt.

Perilya is further evaluating additional target areas for potential inclusion in the resource.

Shares in Perilya have gained A2c to 51.5c in afternoon trade.