Cadia

The Cadia Valley gold and copper operations owned by Newcrest Mining Limited includes the low grade gold producer Cadia Hill open pit and underground gold and copper mine. Besides the Cadia Hill Mine, at Cadia Valley, there is also the higher grade Ridgley underground mine and the Cadia East Mine. This group of mines is the largest gold producer in New South Wales and one of Australia's largest gold producers. There are two concentrators serving the operations. All mines share most of the mining infrastructure facilities and services available at the site. This allows the two concentrators to work as a single complex.

Gold and Copper Discovered at Cadia Hill in 1992

The large but generally low grade ore body at Cadia Hill was discovered in 1992 but it does allow for economics of scale because of the ore treatment techniques and large scale bulk mining method used at the mine. Mining contractor Macmahon was the contractor chosen by Newcrest for the underground development work carried out at the Cadia Hill Mine in 2011.

The Cadia Valley complex that is located near the central west New South Wales town of Orange, 250 kilometres west of Sydney, sends its copper concentrate to Port Kembla for export to its mainly east Asian customers after it is dewatered. The processing plant at Cadia Hill Mine produces gold dore after putting the ore through a gravity and flotation circuit. The gold dore is further refined at the Perth Mint.

Cadia Valley Mines a big Contributer to the Orange NSW Community

At the end of the financial year for 2011/2012 the Cadia Valley Operation had, for that year, produced 44,778 tonnes of copper and 473,195 ounces of gold. Since the beginning of production in 1999 to June 30, 2012 it had produced over 7.1 million ounces of gold. The mines employ over 2,300 contractors and 780 of its own employees during peak production periods with these workers living in Orange or nearby towns.

NewCrest Mining Limited ñ a Leading World Gold Producer

The owner of the Cadia Hill gold and copper mine, Newcrest Mining Limited, is one of the world's leading five gold producers by both market capitalisation and gold reserves. It is the largest gold producer listed on the ASX (Australian Stock Exchange). Newcrest Mining Limited was created in 1996 as a result of Newmont Mining Limited establishing its Australian subsidiary, Newmont Holdings Limited, which was later changed Newmont Australia Limited. The new company was formed to explore for and to develop Australian gold prospects. Prior to this, in 1990, Newmont Australia Limited had taken over Australmin Holdings Limited and merged with BHP Gold Limited, a company fully owned by BHP Limited. It was this merger that led to the resulting new company being named Newcrest Mining Limited. Newcrest has therefore been listed on the ASX since 1987 albeit then as Newmont Australia Limited. Newcrest merged with Lihir Gold Limited in 2010 and became listed on the Port Moresby Stock Exchange as a result. It is also secondary listed on the Toronto Stock exchange.

Cadia Hill is therefore owned by a company with strong bone fides and assured of a long life as Newcrest continues with its exploration program in order to further expand its reserves. One result of this aggressive exploration program has been the commissioning of the Cadia East underground mine in 2012. This new mine is increasing annual production to 26 million tonnes of ore with the intention of lifting group annual production of copper to 90,000 tonnes and gold to 800,000 ounces.