Northparkes is a copper

Copper

Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...

 and gold

Gold

Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...

 mine located in central New South Wales

New South Wales

New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

, Australia, approximately 27 kilometers north-northwest of the town of Parkes

Parkes, New South Wales

- Transport :Parkes has a local bus service provided by Western Road Liners, which acquired Harris Bus Lines in March 2006. The Indian Pacific also stops twice a week, as well as the Broken Hill Outback Xplorer service, run by CountryLink, which heads to Broken Hill on Mondays and Sydney on...

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The mine was originally started in 1994 using open pit mining, with underground mining using the block caving method starting in 1997. The mine has an operational capacity to produce five million tonne

Tonne

The tonne, known as the metric ton in the US , often put pleonastically as "metric tonne" to avoid confusion with ton, is a metric system unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms. The tonne is not an International System of Units unit, but is accepted for use with the SI...

s of ore per year, containing roughly 60,000 tonnes of copper and 50,000 ounces of gold. Economic viability of the mine is projected to extend at least to the year 2015.

The mine is 80% owned by the Rio Tinto Group

Rio Tinto Group

The Rio Tinto Group is a diversified, British-Australian, multinational mining and resources group with headquarters in London and Melbourne. The company was founded in 1873, when a multinational consortium of investors purchased a mine complex on the Rio Tinto river, in Huelva, Spain from the...

, with the remaining 20% owned by the Sumitomo Group

Sumitomo Group

is one of the largest keiretsu, founded by Masatomo Sumitomo.-History:The Sumitomo group traces its roots to a bookshop in Kyoto founded circa 1615 by a former buddhist priest,...

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