RE: Just for something different15 Feb 2025 22:48
N.B. Taken from article dated 23.04.2012
Some extracts:
“Discovered five years ago, O’Callaghan’s has been quietly studied by Newcrest as a useful addition to Telfer,
With the potential to generate annual sales approaching $US280 million, O’Callaghan’s would make a modest contribution to Newcrest’s revenue ($4.1 billion last year) and profit ($1 billion).
In its last public statement on the possible addition of tungsten to its inventory of metals, Newcrest management estimated that O’Callaghan’s could lower the cost of gold production at Telfer by between $US100-and-$US150 an ounce, an important contribution to a mine which last year produced gold at $A728 an ounce, but is expected to see the cost rise to $A842/oz this year, and then up to $A962 in 2013.
Since the company’s last comment on O’Callaghan’s, contained in briefing papers released last August, the project has disappeared from view. A spokesman told Eureka Report this week that nothing had changed since then, with a pre-feasibility into the tungsten project expected to be completed this year.
Nothing may have changed at Newcrest as far as tungsten is concerned, but a lot has changed at an international level, with the metal named, along with rare earths, in a World Trade Organisation dispute.”
“In last year’s briefing papers, the potential size of O’Callaghan’s was revealed for the first time, with Newcrest estimating that the tungsten project would cost between $400 million and $500 million to develop.
The key elements at O’Callaghan’s include:
A 3 million tonne-a-year processing facility;
Annual output of between 5000 and 7000 tonnes of tungsten metal, plus copper, zinc and lead; and
First production around 2015.
At the upper level of output, O’Callaghan’s would account for about 7% of annual world tungsten production, which is around 100,000 tonnes a year.”
“With the price high and western governments worried about future tungsten supplies, there is likely to be strong demand for Newcrest to make a decision on developing O’Callaghan’s sooner rather than later.
From a strict investment perspective, O’Callaghan’s is not a big project for Newcrest or its shareholders.
But the high level of international interest in the metal could see the gold miner add tungsten to its range of products, or bring in a third party to develop and market the metal, or make a tidy capital profit by selling the deposit to another miner.”
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