YORKE Peninsula Land Owners Group has renewed its call to the government to reconsider its support for Rex Minerals which owns the proposed copper-gold mine, Hillside, near Ardrossan.
It comes in the wake of the resignation of the company's founder Steve Olsen and its failure to provide key details on the mining plan after completion of the extended feasibility study.
YPLOG's Joy Wundersitz said Mr Olsen's resignation "caps off a difficult period for Rex".
"It started with the resignation of chief executive, Mark Parry, in August and the company's admission that it had been unable to obtain financing for its full-scale operation at Hillside," she said.
"Since then, Rex has spent a long 10 months exploring options for a smaller, less capital intensive operation."
The extended feasibility study was completed in May but only a summary of results were released, which Ms Wundersitz said raised more questions than it provided answers.
She said YPLOG was confident that whatever the plan was, it was no longer consistent with the original mining lease proposal.
"Rex's quarterly activities report for the period ending March 31, 2015, state 'results to date from the EFS show... a complete rework of the mine plan has had a positive impact on the operating cost base and cash flows'," Ms Wundersitz said.
"The original MLP needs to be redone to reflect the new mine plan and to explain, with substantiating technical studies, how it intends to move from a small start-up operation to full-scale operation.
"In effect, the whole process should start again."
A spokesperson for the Department of State Development said the government had not been provided with the extended feasibility study or any other information that had not been publicly released by Rex.
"It is also yet to provide specific details on any alternative options for the Hillside project," the spokesperson said.
"The state government has advised that a detailed technical submission will be required to ensure the consistency of any smaller scale staged start-up to the original proposal assessed by the DSD.
"This submission will inform a government decision regarding the regulatory process required to assess the revised proposal.
"Consistent with the transparent assessment so far undertaken by the DSD, the process for further considering Rex Minerals' proposal and any decision will be made available to the public."
A spokesperson for Rex did not comment on whether there had been 'a complete rework of the mine plan' but said 'the footprint of the most recent plans outlined sits well within the broader plan that has been approved by the SA government'.
"The operations as detailed in the MLP and approved by Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis with the issuing of the mining lease, incorporating its associated conditions, encompasses the largest potential impact operations will exert in a social and environmental sense," the spokesperson said.
"The proposed 6 million tonnes per annum throughput operation is a subset of the operations as detailed in the MLP.
"While the size of the EFS is smaller than the ultimate scale defined within the MLP, the mining operations as announced remain a very substantial mining project."
