Reuters reported that an open pit deposit will be exploited above Australia's Golden Grove underground copper mine extending the life of the operation by 2 years to 2019.

MMG, the Australian arm of China's Minmetals said that the open pit will produce approximately 235,000 tonnes of copper concentrate containing 59,600 tonnes of copper metal over the next 2 years. The underground deposit at Golden Grove was projected to run out of ore in 2017 prior to the decision to tap the open pit deposit.

It said that the open pit will supplement production from our current underground mining operations and support our mine life extension. The deposit is located directly over the existing underground workings and will provide an additional 3.3 million tonnes of copper ore reserves.

(Sourced from Reuters)