Olympic Dam

The Olympic Dam copper and uranium mine, with the town of Roxby Downs, is located 560 km north of Adelaide, near the opal mining centre of Andamooka. This is an arid part of Australia, receiving only an average of only 160 mm of rain per year, and that rather unreliably. The massive deposit is underground, some 350 metres below the surface, and is the largest known uranium orebody in the world.

The deposit was discovered in 1975 by Western Mining Corporation Ltd which was looking for copper in buried sedimentary rocks. After considering geophysical data a drill hole was sunk near a small stock water dam known as Olympic Dam. It struck copper, and later drilling confirmed a resource of more than 2000 million tonnes of ore containing both copper and uranium. From 1979 the deposit was developed as a Joint Venture with British Petroleum Ltd. In 1985 it was decided to proceed with the project, and production commenced in 1988.

WMC (Olympic Dam Corporation) Pty Ltd is the management company, a wholly-owned subsidiary of BHP Billiton Limited, which took over WMC Resources in mid 2005. Initially BP Minerals Ltd was a 49% partner in the enterprise, but WMC took over BP Minerals' share in 1993 for $315 million.