Browns polymetallic ore deposit "sulfide" resources. The oxide resources consist of supergene or weathered sulfide ore where the ore mineralogy is dominated by metal oxides, hydroxides, clays and carbonates after the original sulfide mineralogy. The Browns deposit is currently being developed as a major base metals mine by Compass Resources NL, an Australian public company, in joint venture with Hunan Nonferrous Metals Corporation, a Chinese government company. The mine is due to be complete in August 2008, after suffering cost escalation and construction delays, and will produce 15,000 tonnes of copper, 4,000 tonnes of cobalt and 4,000 tonnes of nickel per annum, with a
Lateritic nickel ore deposits It is bound in newly formed phyllosilicate minerals. All the nickel in the silicate zone is leached downwards (absolute nickel concentration) from the overlying goethite zone. Typical nickel laterite ore deposits are very large tonnage, low-grade deposits located close to the surface. They are typically in the range of 20 million tonnes and upwards (this being a contained resource of 200,000 tonnes of nickel at 1%) with some examples approaching a billion tonnes of material. Thus, typically, nickel laterite ore deposits contain many billions of dollars of in-situ value of contained metal. Ore deposits of this type are restricted to