(Bloomberg) — In the dusty, treeless outback of Southern Australia, a brand new mining camp is home to a hundred workers, putting in 12-hour days, two weeks at a time. Dozens of trucks are scattered across the vast acreage, mounted with towering rigs drilling more than 2 kilometers (1.3 miles) underground. All are focused on the hunt for one of the world’s most coveted minerals: copper.
Oak Dam, discovered by BHP Group geologists in 2018, is a glimmer of hope for Chief Executive Mike Henry, who sees global copper demand doubling over the coming decades as the energy transition takes hold, and wants his company to produce more of it.
The deposit is also a rarity — if all goes to plan, a new operation will be built here by the world’s largest miner, from scratch. “Globally, there would be few companies conducting drilling campaigns of this scale, to this depth,” said Michael Fonti, BHP’s main exploration geologist at the site, pointing out a diagram of the cone-shaped deposit.
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