Lady Loretta is 140kilometres north-west of Mount Isa. Emergency service personnel, Mount Isa to Townsville and Economic Zone’s and Commerce North West representatives travelled two hours from Mount Isa by bus.

They were given a tour of the underground zinc, lead and silver mine, which is 440metres deep.

Visitors were also shown a road crash rescue demonstration from the site’s emergency response team and visited other key above-ground sites. 

Lady Loretta general manager Bryant Schwengler said giving 15 people a tour of the mine had caused some disruption in the day’s production but it was close to schedule. 

It was good to share the great work done on site with stakeholders, he said. 

“As a young mining operation, it is important that we foster close working relationships with our neighbours and we look forward to holding this event again in the future,” he said. 

There are about 350 miners and contractors based at the camp.

Employees based in Mount Isa are offered a drive-in, drive-out option. 

The mine’s life is expected to last until 2020 to 2021 but the company will look at an exploration strategy next year, Mr Schwengler said.

The mine’s focus was to boost production to 1.6 million tonnes a year by the end of next year’s second quarter.

Production reached slightly less than one million tonnes in 2014 – about 90,000 tonnes a month. 

Continuation of operations at Lady Loretta depended on the international market but Mr Schwengler said there was a five-year mine plan in place.  Further neighbour’ day tours will depend on the feedback that visitors provided at the end of the tour, he said. 

One million tonnes of ore were mined in July at Lady Loretta. 

Noranda Pacific is owned by Glencore.  

More coverage in Monday’s The North West Star.