Broken Hill South Mine (BHS Mine; South Mine), Broken Hill, Broken Hill district, Yancowinna Co., New South Wales, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Broken Hill South Mine (BHS Mine; South Mine)	Mine
Broken Hill	City
Broken Hill district	Mining District
Yancowinna Co.	County
New South Wales	State
Australia	Country

The South Mine was established as The Broken Hill South Silver Mining Co Ltd in 1885.

The South Mine covers the central area of the Broken Hill line of lode, approximately 4 km in length, with the boundaries defined by two roads that connect the main part of the city of Broken Hill with the south district.

The Broken Hill South Silver Mining Co. Ltd was originally formed to work Blocks 7 and 8 of the line of lode and mining commenced in 1888. This mine is adjacent to the Broken Hill Proprietary Mine.

The South Mine took over the original leases held by BHP when they left in the 1940s. These were blocks 9-16 and were located between the South Hill overpass and the Menindee Road. The original South Mine was actually blocks 7 and 8 – hence the No 7 shaft. The rest of the blocks along the outcrop of the main line of lode were as follows:

- Block 9 was the Central Mine,

- Block 10 stood as a single mine,

- Blocks 11, 12 and 13 formed the BHP (Proprietary) mine,

- Block 14 stood as an individual mine,

- Blocks 15 and 16 formed the British Mine,

- Block 17 was the first part of the North Mine,

- Block 39 was the Junction Mine,

- The Zinc Mine covered blocks 5 and 6.

Following the closure of the South Mine in 1972 there have been three companies that have worked the leases (collectively grouped as CML 7 which includes blocks 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, and 39); these were Minerals Mining and Metallurgy – MMM, Normandy and now Consolidated Broken Hill – CBH.

The main open cut operations were:

(i) BHP open cut – operated in the 1890s – 1920s;

(ii) Blackwood open cut, would become part of the MMM mine – operated in the late 1970s and early 1980s;

(iii) Kintore open cut and Block 14 open cut, would be part of Normandy – operated in the late 1980s and closed in 1996.

The current operation – Rasp Mine (CBH) was set up in 2001, to mine the Western Mineralisation.

The hard part is to distinguish between the work done prior to 1972. Any samples from the Kintore mine (Kintore shaft area) should be labelled as either BHP (Proprietary) mine between 1885 and the 1940s, after 1950 it should be the South Mine, after 1972 the work done was via open cuts. Material collected should be labelled according to the main open cut operation of each mining era:

– Blackwood – 1970s – MMM mine

- Kintore and Block 14 – 1980s

- 1990s – Normandy Mine

This describes the company that was operating at the time of extraction and the method used.

The current operation (2016) is the RASP Mine, owned by Consolidated Broken Hill. This company put a decline in from the bottom of Kintore Open Cut to access underground workings. The company is mining a large orebody 200 metres northwest of the line of lode – called the western mineralisation. They are also mining remnant pillars of the old South Mine and a relatively untouched deposit called the eastern mineralisation.

The open cuts of the 1970s – 1990s have been used by both Normandy and CBH in the following ways:

- Kintore – partially backfilled by CBH with material removed from the access decline.

- Block 14 – CBH tailings dam, now partially filled with tailings from the milling process.

- Blackwood – partially filled by overburden by Normandy during the mining of the Block 14 open cut.

- The Kintore shaft was closed in 1959 and was used as an exhaust fan from the 1480 level in the Little Kintore Pit.

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