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The Birla Nifty Copper Mine is located within the Great Sandy Desert Region of the East Pilbara of West Australia. It is approximately 1250km North of Perth and 350km to the East of Port Hedland, and 70 kilometres west of the Telfer gold mine. Access is via a private road from the Woodie Woodie manganese mine, to the West.

The Nifty Copper operation is comprised of a historical open pit Oxide mine and an underground Sulphide mine. Site infrastructure which includes a concentrator, powerhouse, camp, airfield and a tailings storage facility supports the sulphide operations. A concentrate storage facility is located at Port Hedland, from where it is shipped to the parent company in India.

The private Airport is fully bitumised for all weather landings. Nifty Airport (ICAO: YCNF) is located adjacent to the Nifty Copper Mine, Western Australia.

The underground operation has a capacity of 2.3 mtpa and the concentrator plant has a capacity of 2.5mtpa. Concentrate produced is tansported via Road Train to Port Hedland for shipping to Hindalco Copper’s Dahej smelting and refining facility in India.

The open pit operation exploited oxide, transitional and chalcocite mineral resources from which copper cathode is recovered via a heap leach and SX-EW method. A heap leach retreatment project to upgrade the existing processing plant and recover approximately 40,000 tonnes of copper from existing heap leach pads has been postponed due to a subdued economic environment.

History Straits Resources purchased the mine in 1998, and then Aditya Birla Minerals in 2003. Open pit mining of the chalcocite ore ceased in 2006,and heap leaching operations ceased in January 2009. Underground mining of the chalcopyrite ore started in 2009. The expected mine life for the underground operation is at least nine years. The ore is trucked to Port Hedland, then shipped to India to be processed. The company is also exploring the Maroochydore copper deposit to the south east.

Geology Potentially this mine could provide a major source of fine secondary copper specimens to the collector market, if only the mine operators could see the value of such an exercise. Like many copper deposits in arid areas, the oxidised zone has retained an abundance of species.

Surface evidence was difficult to locate due to the over-lying sand dunes, but a malachite stained outcrop was discovered by Western Mining Corporation in 1981. Exploration Drilling in 1983 had identified a deep sulphide resource, giving rise to open pit mining of the oxide zone.

The Nifty deposit is hosted by the late proterozoic (1700 Ma) Broadhurst Formation, which is part of the Yeneena Group. Zones are from bottom up: footwall- thinly laminated carbonaceous pyritic shale, micaceous and chloritic siltstone and minor light grey dolomitic mudstone; Nifty Member- 40-70 metres of dolomitic mudstone interbedded with carbonaceous shale and quartz dolomite alterations; 4 metres of grey black chloritic shale with pseudomorphs after evaporite rosettes; Pyritic Marker Bed- 25-60 metres of blue black carbonaceous shales with abundant pyrite; Hanging Wall- beds of laminated dark grey to black pyritic carbonaceous silts and shales. Most of the primary and secondary mineralisation is in the Nifty Member, extending up to 40 metres into the hanging wall.

Copper mineralisation is thought to have occurred from regional compression, resulting in hot, saline, slightly acidic ground-water, increasing the pH, precipitating copper. This is found in sheets to 20 cm across and 2mm thick matching the shale bedding planes. It is also found as pods, stringers and vein networks. Calcite and cuprite is found in association with the copper in these networks. Cuprite is said to be abundant.

The oxidised zone extends from the surface to 100 metres, and is dominated by malachite and azurite, with minor atacamite, and chrysocolla. There is then a transitional zone of native copper with malachite and azurite, and minor chalcocite below this at the current water table. Below this is high grade chalcocite as the primary sulphide. In this last zone is the Nifty Member containing chalcocite, pyrite, sphalerite, galena, and trace pyrrhotite. The malachite comes in a variety of habits, including mats of fine acicular crystals, and flattened sheaves up to 3mm long. Groups of malachite crystals are found associated with doubly terminated clear drusy quartz crystals.

The species found is similar to Telfer, both sharing similar geology and formation processes. Unlike Telfer, no gold is found at Nifty. No phosphate species are found at Telfer.

In 2000, staff from the Western Australian Museum were able to access the oxidised ore stockpiles, and collected a treasure trove of specimens. Mark Creasy and David Vaughan hold specimens that somehow found their way into the Blair Gartrell Collection in the early days of exploration.