Carrapateena mine

The Carrapateena mine is a large copper mine under development 100 km southeast of Olympic Dam in South Australia's Far North region. Carapateena represents one of the largest copper reserves in Australia and in the world having estimated reserves of 292 million tonnes of ore grading 1.31% copper and 3.64 million oz of gold. It was discovered by explorer and metallurgist Rudie Gomez in 2005. The project was acquired by OZ Minerals in 2011, and the project was referred to the EPBC Act for Federal environmental approval in 2012. As of 2016 the project is at pre-feasibility stage, with construction of a decline underway. The mining technique expected to be used to extract the ore is sub-level caving.