Peak hill

Although the Peak Hill open cut mine in Western Australia has been placed under temporary suspension, Process Minerals International Pty Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Minerals Resources Limited, remains the owner and operator of the Woodie Woodie fines operation. This operation is located 400 kilometres south east of Port Hedland in the mineral rich Pilbara Region and is adjacent to the Woodie Woodie manganese mine that is owned by British mining company, Consolidated Minerals Limited.

Process Minerals International Processes Woodie Woodie Fines
Process Minerals International is the only independent manganese producer in Australia that is privately owned and it produces an average of 400,000 tonnes of top grade manganese fines annually. The Woodie Woodie fines operation at Peak Hills has a projected mine life of over 10 years.

The Process Minerals International Processing Plant at Peak Hills is a state of the art facility that is consistently reliable and able to produce a quality assured product that is of a world best standard. The product that leaves the mill is taken by haulage trucks along an all weather sealed road to Port Hedland where the concentrate is blended and held in storage before being exported overseas.

Mineral Resources Outsource Peak Hills Operation to Auvex Resources Limited
In 2009, Mineral Resources, the owner of the Peak Hills open cut manganese mine, outsourced its manganese mining operation to Auvex Resources Limited. The first shipment of lump ore produced by Auvex was shipped out of Port Hedland on October 24 that year to customers in southern China. The ship carrying 24,000 tonnes of Peak Hills ore arrived at Qinzhou in the Cuangxi Province on November 2, 2009. Joint venture partners at that time, Mesa Mining, immediately set about negotiating further sales of high grade manganese with other potential buyers. Montezuma held 12.5 percent of Auvex at the time and were planning the development of the nearby Ant Hill and Sunday Hill manganese deposits.

Following Auvex being successfully listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), the opportunity presented itself whereby its Montezuma shareholdings gave the company the potential to fund further development work at both the Peak Hill and Butcher Bird manganese deposits. Auvex was planning an initial production of 300,000 tonnes of magnesium annually to be sustained over a five year period, starting in 2010. As only one third of the deposit had been drilled, the company was confident it would be able to substantially increase the life of mine that had been forecasted.

Woodie Woodie Mine is Owned by Consolidated Minerals Limited
Today the Woodie Woodie manganese deposit is mined by Pilbara Manganese, a company that is fully owned and operated by Consolidated Minerals Limited (Consmin). The Peak Hills mines have a tenement area of 100 square kilometres with a further greenfield exploration area totalling 5,500 square kilometres. The area consists of a number of open pits. The Woodie Woodie ore is trucked from the area in 100 million tonne road trains to Port Hedland.