1. Mining Industry Investigation By: Katie Marquis 8E

2. About the company: The company that I decided to research was ‘Oz Minerals’. The value of the company is approximately $1,086,422,678. The share price of Oz Minerals varies but at the moment it is $3.58.

3. The product: Oz Minerals mines copper, gold and silver. They mine in South Australia and Victoria. Copper is used for many things such as construction, refrigeration and air conditioning, cookware, medical applications and in art.

4. The process: The Oz Minerals copper mining process starts by blasting the ore from the mine. Oz minerals obtains copper ore from its open pit mine and its underground mine sites. The copper ore is then transported to crushers on-site at the copper mine. The copper concentrate is obtained from the ore in the flotation tanks.

5. This process starts by feeding the copper ore into the tank. Compressed air is forced into the tank and the tank is agitated. This causes air bubbles to form. The copper sticks to the air bubbles and rises to the tank top forming a layer of froth which is moved into the concentrate launder where it is dried. Oz Minerals sell the copper concentrate.

6. Impact: The main environmental impacts of the mine are energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. However the protection of the environment is a key aspect of the Oz Minerals business. Oz minerals does produce pollution however it is managed by using pits (which have been dug up) as storage areas for water and in underground mines waste rock can be used to back fill areas previously mined. The copper ore mine is located 650 kms north west of Adelaide and 130 kms south east of the town of Coober Pedy in South Australia. There is no local towns located near the mine to be effected by it. Employees are flown in and out of the site. OZ Minerals has a good relationship with traditional owners of the land, the Antakarinja Aboriginal group.

7. Conclusion: I think the copper mining process at Oz Minerals is a very well managed process. The company has many ideas to produce pollution within their mining for copper ore and the effect on the environment.

8. Bibliography http://www.ozminerals.com http://www.life123.com/career- money/commodities-2/copper/how-to-mine- copper.shtml http://www.911metallurgist.com/blog/whats-a- froth-flotation-process