Sample Professional Intelligence Report (Tier 2) — illustrative, built entirely on open public data to show the format of a paid GeaSpirit report. Not a for-sale listing, not ownership-verified, not investment advice.
Mount Lyell Copper Field — Sample Intelligence Report
One of Australia’s great copper fields — >1 Mt Cu produced since the 1890s — suspended in 2014 and now under an active restart study by Sibanye-Stillwater. A worked example of GeaSpirit intelligence on a care-and-maintenance asset with a defined resource.
1. Executive summary
Mount Lyell is a volcanic-hosted Cu-Au system in the Cambrian Mount Read Volcanics of western Tasmania, in near-continuous production from 1896 until operations were suspended in July 2014 after safety incidents and weak copper prices. It is not closed but on care & maintenance, with a defined JORC Mineral Resource of 79.4 Mt for ~1,609 M lb copper + 0.5 M oz gold and a reserve of ~9.5 Mt @ 1.25% Cu. Owner Copper Mines of Tasmania (Sibanye-Stillwater, 100% since Nov 2023) is running a restart study. MEDIUM band: a well-evidenced resource against restart-economics uncertainty.
2. GeaSpirit Score
Headline GeaSpirit Score: 66.3 / 100 MEDIUM confidence. The score is a 0–100 triage signal built from four 0–25 dimensions — Signal (spectral + geological favourability), Access/Depth (reachability + infrastructure), Precision (spatial tightness) and Certainty (validation strength, penalised for missing evidence). Read it with its band, never in isolation. See the methodology for the full definition.
3. Open-data asset profile
| Field | Open-data value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Commercial status | Care & maintenance | L1 |
| Known production / estimate | Since 1890s: >1Mt copper, 750t silver, 45t gold. Restart study: ~60M lb Cu/yr & 16,000 oz Au/yr (1,224M lb Cu, 320,000 oz Au over mine life) | L2 · sourced |
| Resource / reserve | Mineral Resource 79.4 Mt for 1,609 M lb copper + 0.5 M oz gold; JORC reserve ~9.5 Mt ore at 1.25% Cu | L2 · sourced |
| Grade | Reserve ~1.25% Cu; district characterized by high Cu and Au grades; disseminated chalcopyrite-pyrite ores | L2 · sourced |
| Operator | Copper Mines of Tasmania Pty Ltd (CMT), wholly-owned subsidiary of Sibanye-Stillwater Ltd (100% since Nov 2023) | L1 |
| Period | Gold discovered 1880s; copper production from 1896; near-continuous to July 2014; care & maintenance, restart underway (2025 feasibility study) | L1 |
| Deposit type | Volcanic-hosted Cu-Au (VHMS/hybrid) in altered Cambrian Mount Read Volcanics; pyrite-chalcopyrite in sericite-chlorite-silica schist | L1 |
| Closure / status reason | Operations suspended July 2014 after fatalities/safety incidents and low copper prices; placed on care and maintenance | L1 |
| Coordinates | -42.0658, 145.571 | verified |
Historic Cu mine; care & maintenance since 2014.
4. Second-chance thesis
Care-and-maintenance assets are the highest-confidence second-chance category: the orebody is drilled, the resource is JORC-defined, and the infrastructure (shafts, mill, town, port access) already exists — the question is restart economics, not discovery. Mount Lyell’s levers are the prevailing copper price (structural EV/grid demand), capital to recommission, and resolution of the historic acid-mine-drainage / environmental legacy that any restart must address. The restart study targeting ~60 M lb Cu/yr frames the upside; the AMD legacy frames the gating cost.
5. Comparables
Comparable care-and-maintenance / restart copper: Tasmania’s adjacent Rosebery and Henty (MMG) anchor the Mount Read Volcanics belt’s endowment. Globally, restart-after-suspension copper stories (e.g. assets brought back as copper prices recovered) follow the same defined-resource, economics-gated pattern that distinguishes care-and-maintenance from genuinely abandoned mines.
6. Due-diligence checklist
- Confirm the current JORC resource/reserve statement and the status of the restart study.
- Independent review of restart capital and operating cost assumptions vs. copper-price decks.
- Environmental legacy and AMD remediation liability — a material gating item.
- Confirm tenure and owner intent (Sibanye-Stillwater commitment and timeline).
- Metallurgical and geotechnical review of remaining ore vs. historic mining.
- Infrastructure condition assessment (shafts, mill, tailings, port logistics).
7. Evidence & provenance
Primary open source: https://miningdataonline.com/property/849/Mount-Lyell-Mine.aspx. Production, resource and grade figures are at Evidence Level 2 (matched to a cited open source); a Tier-3 Revival Dossier would add GeaSpirit-engine satellite back-analysis, geochemical context and independent verification. Each figure and the source document can be hashed (SHA-256) and timestamp-anchored on the SOST chain, making this report’s provenance tamper-evident — we anchor trust, never ownership.