Heron Resources breaks ground on Woodlawn Zinc-Copper Project

Ground has been officially broken on a 1.5Mtpa zinc-coper mine in Australia.

Heron Resources, an exploration and mineral development company with interests in nickel, gold copper and zinc, announced that construction work had begun on its wholly owned Woodlawn Zinc-Copper Project.

The project, located just south of Sydney, consists of two significant poly-metallic resource-based assets, the Woodlawn Underground Project and the Woodlawn Tailings Retreatment Project.

Construction of a 1.5Mtpa processing plant, and associated infrastructure, will take place for around 15 months with Heron Resources’ targeting a commissioning date in late 2018, and a production date for early 2019.

Commenting on the ground breaking, Heron’s Managing Director, Mr Wayne Taylor said: “Today’s ground breaking at Woodlawn marks a major milestone in Heron’s journey from a developer toward becoming a long term, low cost and profitable base metals producer.”

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“The commencement of construction is the culmination of many years hard work by our team and would not be possible without the support of our shareholders, financiers and the local community.  As the zinc price reaches near 10-year highs, and with market fundamentals underpinning a robust price outlook, it’s a strong reinforcement of the project’s excellent timing and the need to ensure we meet our construction schedule and bring Woodlawn into production by early 2019.” 

Once the project is up and running, the Woodlawn Processing Plant will produce 40,000tpa of zinc, 10,000tpa of copper and 12,000tpa of lead in concentrates which are planned to be exported from Port Kembla and / or Port Botany.

Based on the total resource and exploration upside both at Woodlawn and regionally, there is significant potential to extend the mine life beyond its initial mineable Reserves of 9.3 years