Water management and safety are the focus at the Century mine site, where mining activities have been suspended after what is described as an unprecedented wet season for the lower Gulf zinc operation.

Bureau of Meteorology figures show Century has received 1605.2mm of rain since the current wet season kicked off in October. That is almost triple the average annual rainfall total for the site of 567.9mm.

“In the time that Century’s existed, we haven’t seen anything like this,” New Century Resources spokesman Shane Goodwin said.

“Talking to some long-term residents of the Gulf in Doomadgee and Burketown, that sort of thing… a very well known resident of Burketown yesterday said to me that ’74 was bigger, but not significantly bigger.”

New Century Resources restarted operations at Century mine, 250km north-west of Mount Isa, in 2018 – but the site began production as an open-pit mine back in in 1999.

In an announcement to the market yesterday the company reported that rainfall events in North-West Queensland, especially the intense falls of the previous few days, were having an impact on operations at the Century mine and the company’s Karumba port facility.

Mr Goodwin said the usual workforce remained on site, with many redeployed onto tasks associated with water management and ensuring people’s safety.

“We did have a situation during the peak of the rainfall where we sent only absolutely essential personnel from the mine camp into the operational areas,” he said.

“We didn’t need people on the road or anything like that, so we kept them in mine camp, but that was (just) one day.”

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The company was unable to estimate how long mining operations would be affected, he said.

For the time being it was matter of managing water on site.

“Obviously we’ve got some pretty significant water storage on site, including an open pit, tailings storage facility, evaporation dam and sediment dams throughout the site,” he said.

“So it’s just a water management exercise where we’re doing our best to ensure that the water flows where it should and we avoid water flowing where it shouldn’t.”

The New Century Resources operation extracts, processes and markets zinc recovered from historical tailings.