Century Mine

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title: "Century Mine" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["north-west-queensland", "surface-mines-in-australia", "zinc-mines-in-queensland", "lead-mines-in-queensland", "1997-establishments-in-australia", "2016-disestablishments-in-australia"] description: "Mine in Queensland, Australia" topic_path: "geography/australia" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_Mine" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Mine in Queensland, Australia ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox mine"]

Field	Value
name	Century Mine
place	Lawn Hill
subdivision_type	State
state/province	Queensland
country	Australia
owner	CRA Limited (1990–1997)
Pasminco (1997–2004)
Zinifex (2004–2008)
OZ Minerals (2008–2009)
MMG Limited (2009–2017)
New Century Resources (2017–2023), Sibanye-Stillwater (2023-)
official website	https://www.sibanyestillwater.com/business/australia/century/
discovery year	1990
products	Lead and zinc concentrates
opening year
closing year	2015
::

| name = Century Mine | image = | width = | caption = | pushpin_map = | pushpin_label_position = | pushpin_label = | pushpin_map_alt = | pushpin_mapsize = | pushpin_map_caption = | coordinates = | scale = | place = Lawn Hill | subdivision_type = State | state/province = Queensland | country = Australia | owner = CRA Limited (1990–1997) Pasminco (1997–2004) Zinifex (2004–2008) OZ Minerals (2008–2009) MMG Limited (2009–2017) New Century Resources (2017–2023), Sibanye-Stillwater (2023-) | official website = https://www.sibanyestillwater.com/business/australia/century/ | discovery year = 1990 | acquisition year = | products = Lead and zinc concentrates | financial year = | amount = | opening year = | active years = | closing year = 2015 Century Mine was a large open cut zinc, lead and silver mine at Lawn Hill, 250 km northwest of Mount Isa in North West Queensland, Australia. It was Australia's largest open pit zinc mine. Discovered by CRA Limited, mining was initiated by Pasminco, continued by Zinifex, then OZ Minerals and then MMG Limited who mined the project until closure. The property was then owned by New Century Resources who were bought by Sibanye-Stillwater in 2023. The mine is in a phase of tailings reprocessing.

History

The Century zinc deposit was discovered by CRA Limited in 1990 on Waanyi land. Development of the mine commenced in 1997. The mine began open-pit production in 1999.

Open-pit mining was completed at Century in August 2015, with final processing of Century-sourced ore occurring in November 2015. The last ore to be processed at Century was 450,000 tonnes that had been mined as part of the Dugald River mine's stoping trial, and then trucked to Century. The processing of this ore was completed in January 2016. The final shipment of zinc concentrate was exported from Karumba in late January 2016.

During its 16 years of operation, Century was one of the largest zinc mines in the world, producing and processing an average of 475,000 tpa of zinc concentrate and 50,000 tpa of lead concentrate. Mill tailings generated from 16 years of operations from the Century open pit forms a Proven Reserve of 77.3 million tonnes at 3.1% zinc-equivalent, for 2,287,000 tonnes of contained zinc.

New Century Resources, an Australian base metals development company, restarted Century Mine operations from August 2018 extracting zinc from the tailings.

Operations

Zinc and lead concentrates are exported via the port at Karumba on the Gulf of Carpentaria. The zinc ore is especially prized because of its low iron content, producing a high quality clean zinc concentrate that is keenly sought by the world's zinc smelters. The concentrate is mixed with water and transported to the port by a 304 km pipeline.

Climate

Century Mine has a tropical semi-arid climate (Köppen: BSh) with a short wet season from December to March and a long dry season from April to November. The wettest recorded day was 8 March 2023 with 313.4 mm of rainfall. Extreme temperatures ranged from 45.2 C on 31 December 2023 to 4.0 C on 23 July 2018.

|location = Century Mine () (127 m AMSL) (2003-2025) |metric first = Yes |single line = Yes |Jan record high C = 45.1 |Feb record high C = 43.2 |Mar record high C = 43.9 |Apr record high C = 40.4 |May record high C = 38.5 |Jun record high C = 35.3 |Jul record high C = 35.9 |Aug record high C = 38.0 |Sep record high C = 41.7 |Oct record high C = 43.9 |Nov record high C = 44.7 |Dec record high C = 45.2 |Jan high C = 36.9 |Feb high C = 36.1 |Mar high C = 36.0 |Apr high C = 34.8 |May high C = 31.2 |Jun high C = 28.5 |Jul high C = 28.6 |Aug high C = 30.9 |Sep high C = 35.1 |Oct high C = 38.0 |Nov high C = 38.7 |Dec high C = 38.5 |Jan low C = 25.1 |Feb low C = 24.3 |Mar low C = 23.8 |Apr low C = 21.0 |May low C = 17.2 |Jun low C = 13.8 |Jul low C = 12.9 |Aug low C = 13.6 |Sep low C = 17.6 |Oct low C = 21.5 |Nov low C = 23.9 |Dec low C = 25.2 |Jan record low C = 19.8 |Feb record low C = 16.8 |Mar record low C = 17.5 |Apr record low C = 11.4 |May record low C = 8.0 |Jun record low C = 4.3 |Jul record low C = 4.0 |Aug record low C = 4.4 |Sep record low C = 8.3 |Oct record low C = 8.7 |Nov record low C = 15.3 |Dec record low C = 15.1 |precipitation colour = green |Jan precipitation mm = 174.2 |Feb precipitation mm = 122.0 |Mar precipitation mm = 129.4 |Apr precipitation mm = 22.9 |May precipitation mm = 6.3 |Jun precipitation mm = 3.9 |Jul precipitation mm = 5.9 |Aug precipitation mm = 1.2 |Sep precipitation mm = 2.4 |Oct precipitation mm = 19.0 |Nov precipitation mm = 55.8 |Dec precipitation mm = 94.2 |year precipitation mm = 625.5 |unit precipitation days = 0.2 mm |Jan precipitation days = 14.5 |Feb precipitation days = 10.9 |Mar precipitation days = 9.0 |Apr precipitation days = 2.5 |May precipitation days = 1.6 |Jun precipitation days = 1.0 |Jul precipitation days = 0.6 |Aug precipitation days = 0.3 |Sep precipitation days = 1.1 |Oct precipitation days = 2.7 |Nov precipitation days = 6.7 |Dec precipitation days = 9.9 |source = Bureau of Meteorology (2003-2025){{cite web |url = http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/averages/tables/cw_029167_All.shtml |title = Century Mine Climate Statistics (2003-2025) |publisher = Bureau of Meteorology |access-date = January 16, 2026}}

References

References

1. https://www.sibanyestillwater.com/business/australia/century/
2. "Century Mine Project".
3. (1996). "Sale of the Century Zinc Project". Parliamentary Library.
4. "Infrastructure". Minmetals Resources.
5. "Century". MMG Limited.
6. "Mining completed at MMG Century mine". MMG Limited.
7. "Century". MMG Limited.
8. "Century". MMG Limited.
9. "Australia's largest open-cut zinc mine ships final load from Karumba amid questions on legacy of landmark native title agreement". Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
10. "Geology & Resources".
11. "Century". Minmetals Resources.
12. (26 October 2009). "Century mine pipe replacement to take 2-3 weeks". Business Spectator.
13. "Climate classification maps: Köppen - all classes". [[Bureau of Meteorology]].
14. "Century Mine Climate (2003-2025)". [[Australian Community Media]].

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