The feverish rush for gold which has powered Western Australia’s growth and development since the 19th century is still on in earnest in the State’s glittering Goldfields.
But while the historic gold-mining hub remains a production powerhouse by any Australian standard, it is an operation in the State’s Peel region that stands heads and shoulders above them all.
A recent survey conducted by Melbourne-based mining consultants, Surbiton Associates, shows that WA was home to three of the nation’s top-five gold-mining operations for 2022.
Kalgoorlie’s iconic Super Pit produced a total of 469,084 ounces of gold during the calendar year while the Tropicana joint venture, about 300km to its east, delivered 438,665 ounces.
But towering over the top – and the only WA site to exceed the two Goldfields operations - was Newmont Corporation’s Boddington gold mine that produced an eye-watering 798,000 ounces in the same period.
Located within WA’s Saddleback greenstone belt, Newmont’s wholly-owned operation began commercial production in 2009 and had produced its first one million ounces of gold by March, 2011. It is now the undisputed giant of the gold game.
Still, the fact that the Super Pit continues to deliver the significant number of gold ounces it does after more than 30 years of operation, speaks to both the size and the richness of the “Golden Mile” deposit and the incredible prospectivity of the Goldfields region.
Discovered 130 years ago in 1983, the Golden Mile deposit has been home to a still-growing number of miners throughout its rich history. According to its current owners, Northern Star, there were 49 operating mines, 100 headframes and more than 3000 kilometres of underground workings on the Golden Mile back in 1903.
In the late 1980s, Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines (KCGM) was formed to run the operation, which has also been known as the Fimiston open pit. Then in 2019, when KCGM celebrated its 30th anniversary, it poured its 50,000th bar of gold and brought the total produced from the Golden Mile to more than 60 million ounces in the 120 years since the lease was first pegged.
The Tropicana deposit was discovered in 2005 and is currently operated as a joint venture between AngloGold Ashanti, which has a 70 per cent holding and manages the project, and Regis Resources (30 per cent).
The gold mine sits about 330km north-east of Kalgoorlie and takes in more than 12,000 square kilometres of tenements between the Yilgarn Craton and the Albany-Fraser Province. The combined underground and open-pit operation holds an impressive mineral resource of more than seven million ounces.
Despite being located in an area that was previously not considered prospective for gold, open-pit mining at Tropicana began in 2012 with its first gold pour coming in September the following year. The site is now considered to be one of the State’s richest gold prospects from the past 20 years.
The ongoing success of both the Super Pit and Tropicana has led to a regular stream of explorers and prospective miners trying their luck and investigating the mineral-rich Goldfields region for the precious yellow metal.
Advancements in extraction techniques and ore processing, in addition to the relative stability of the price of gold, have also prompted exploration in areas where low grades have previously dissuaded companies from setting up.
Last year, Horizon Minerals tabled a trio of mineral resource updates across its Goldfields-based projects to boost its gold inventory by 91,000 ounces to a total of 1.24 million ounces. Horizon’s assets in the region also include its Boorara deposit that sits within 10km of the Super Pit.
Ora Banda Mining revealed in February that it had doubled the underground mineral resource at its Riverina gold system near Kalgoorlie to more than 300,000 gold ounces. The producer also announced a maiden ore reserve for Riverina of 73,000 ounces at a solid grade of 4.3 grams per tonne gold.
The updated underground resource is now at a robust 303,000 ounces at a grade of 4.1g/t gold, while the maiden reserve supports the company’s 2025 financial year production target of 100,000 ounces a year.
Brightstar Resources also recently updated its mineral resource estimate for its flagship Cork Tree Well project. The company unveiled 5.6 million tonnes at 1.4g/t per tonne gold for 252,000 ounces, adding 15,100 ounces to its previous JORC resource at its site near Laverton, in the north of the Goldfields region.
Kalgoorlie Gold Mining joined the party in unveiling a maiden mineral resource for its La Mascotte gold deposit near Kalgoorlie of 3.61 million tonnes at 1.19 grams per tonne gold, for a total of 138,000 gold ounces. The resource is a first for a deposit in the Taurus goldfield that hosts KalGold’s broader Bulong Taurus project.
Investment banking giant Goldman Sachs last week predicted that the recently-surging gold price could reach as high as $3067 an ounce in the next year – a forecast it based on fear and growing recession risks.
There is no doubt gold remains a safe haven for investors at the toughest of times and that may just mean that WA, with its extraordinary continued gold production and plenty of aspiring miners still operating in the State’s historic red centre, will be the safest place to go to in the world.
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By Michael Philipps
