The Olympic Dam copper-uranium-gold-silver deposit, located
approximately 520 km north-northwest of Adelaide, South
Australia (Figure 1) was discovered in 1975 by Western Mining
Corporation. A joint venture to facilitate development of the
deposit was formed in mid-1979 between WMC (51 per cent) and
the British Petroleum Group (BP, 49 per cent). Production
commenced in 1988, and current annual output from the mining
and treatment of 2.2 Mt of ore is approximately 65 000 t of
refined copper and 1400 t of uranium oxide. Significant amounts
of refined gold and silver are also produced.