Lanfranchi Nickel Mine, Coolgardie Shire, Western Australia, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Lanfranchi Nickel Mine	Mine
Coolgardie Shire	Shire
Western Australia	State
Australia	Country

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The Lanfranchi nickel deposits are 40 kilometres south of Kambalda. It is wedged between the Lake Cowan Goldfield to the south- a group of small gold mines just north of Lake Cowan, and the St Ives Gold Camp- a large number of north north-west to south south-east underground and open pit gold mines extending across Lake Lefroy from Kambalda and then further south to the border of the Lanfranchi leases.

The deposits contain high grade nickel sulphide ribbon-like shoots at the base of high magnesium komatiite lava flows or channels. The channels run north-south, and the main ones from the west are Edwin, Lanfranchi, Schmitz/Winner, Helmut/Deacon and low grade McComish. The low grade Cruickshank and just south of this Gigantus deposits are 6 kilometres to the north-east. Altogether there are 10 channels of which 6 have seen mining activity. The shoots occupy channel structures in the underlying Lunnon Basalt. Above this the sequence becomes progressively less magnesium rich.

Ore is transported by truck via a haulage road through the St Ives leases, and across a causeway on Lake Lefroy to BHP Billiton's Nickel West Kambalda concentrator, 40 kilometres to the north.

From 1960 to 2002, Western Mining Corporation explored and conducted mining through the area. Western Mining first discovered nickel at its Tramway leases in the 1970's, and 10 nickel sulphide orebodies were discovered through exploration. They produced 101 000 tonnes Ni from Edwin, Lanfranchi, Schmitz, Skinner and Helmut. Mining began on the Edwin shoot in 1976 by Western Mining Corporation.

The leases were purchased from Western Mining's Nickel West in November 2004 as a joint venture, with Canadian based Panorama Resources (75%) and Brilliant Mining (via its subsidiary Donegal Resources)(25%). In 2009, Panorama bought out Brilliant's share giving it total control over the mines. At the time of purchase from Nickel West the site was under care and maintenance. Panorama re-started mining. It is operated by Lanfranchi Nickel Mines Ltd, a fully owned subsidiary of Panorama.

In 2010, Proven and Probable reserves were 2.25 million tonnes of ore at 2.45% Ni yielding 55 000 tonnes of contained nickel. The mine life of the area is expected to be till 2020. The leases contain one underground mine (Lanfranchi) accessing several orebodies, and one decommissioned underground mine (Winner). The Helmut South orebody has also been previously mined. There is also an accommodation village, and paste plant facility. This is a basic pug mill combining gold tailings from the St Ives mines to the north owned by Goldfields, cement and water to produce cement stabilised tailings. This is transported by conveyor belts into the Lanfranchi mine where the paste is used to fill underground voids.

In July 2015 a small earthquake in the region closed access to the Deacon and Jury-Metcalfe orebodies, and half the workforce (76) was made redundant. Mining continues at the Lanfranchi orebody, with plans to develop access to the Lower Schmitz deposit.

Commodity List

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Mineral List

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18 valid minerals.

Rock Types Recorded

Rock list contains entries from the region specified including sub-localities