Commencing with an initial 2-year open pit mining operation which was completed in April 2013, DeGrussa is based on long-term underground mining delivering sulphide ore to an on-site 1.6Mtpa Concentrator.

DeGrussa’s remarkable progress from discovery in April 2009 through to resource drill-out, feasibility, financing, construction and development – just over three years from discovery drill-hole to first production – set new benchmarks for the efficient development of resources in Western Australia.

The DeGrussa underground mine has been  developed to allow for the simultaneous extraction of ore from multiple faces, on multiple lenses. This gives Sandfire a strategic advantage from an underground mining perspective providing production flexibility and enabling it to maintain consistent ore production..

In addition to a 1.6Mtpa Concentrator, other infrastructure and services on site include a Tailings Storage Facility (TSF), power station, paste plant, a sealed airstrip capable of accommodating small jets, a modern 400-room mine village, a mobile phone service and fibre optic communications, office buildings, assay laboratory and sealed access roads.

Production from the ultra-high-grade Monty satellite underground mine (discovered in 2015) commenced in 2019, with ore trucked 14km by road to the Concentrator for processing. Ore is then trucked to both Port Hedland and Geraldton for shipping to our global network of customers.

Today, the DeGrussa and Monty mining operations provide employment for a total workforce of approximately 450 staff and contractors. They also help support a number of important community development programs within the local area.