Investigations into the recovery of copper metal from oxidised ores present in the abandoned historic open cut mine and surrounding dumps at Burra were carried out by Amdel at the request of the South Australian Government's Department of Mines (SADM). The subject has been addressed before, by several separate tests carried out during the period 1941-1960, which showed that acid leaching might be viable on a large scale, whereas leaching with ammoniacal solutions, or flotation treatment, gave only low copper recoveries. However, SADM now considered that this earlier work had used samples not properly representative of the orebody, thus the need for further tests. The current investigations comprised petrological and mineralogical examinations of new samples taken from seven sites, followed by flotation studies, leaching trials with acid, cyanide and ammonia leachants, and comparisons of methods for recovering copper from extracted liquors. Conclusions have then been made as to which of the processes of ore treatment are the most efficient and economical.