Carosue dam

The Carosue Dam gold mine in the Western Australia northern goldfields, 120 kilometres north east of Kalgoorlie, is back in production once again thanks to the faith expressed in its substantial gold reserves by its latest owner Saracen Holdings.

Saracen Holdings is the latest of a long list of owners who have been involved in the Carosue Dam mine since it was first commissioned in 2000 by Pacmin Mining. Pacmin operated it for less than 12 months before selling it to Sons of Gwalia who kept it going for another four years. During these first five years of operation the mine produced 700,000 ounces of the precious metal. Sons of Gwalia unfortunately collapsed financially and the mine found its way into the hands of St Barbara who decided to place it under care and maintenance just three months after making the acquisition. In October 2005 St Barbara decided to sell the Carosue Dam mine to the present owners Saracen Holdings, part of the deal saw St Barbara received a 20 percent interest in Saracen.

Saracen immediately started putting into action a two stage development plan for the mine with 2010 earmarked as the re-opening date. This plan worked out and it is now back producing gold again via an open pit method. The second stage of the planned development is to have underground mining established on the site in the near future.

One of the main decisions made by Saracen to ensure the mine remains profitable was in having the mine power requirements met by linking up with the Western Power electricity grid, a move that allowed them to move away from producing their own power with expensive diesel powered generators. This decision alone meant a savings of between 50 and 100 dollars for every ounce of gold produced.The first stage of the Carosue Dam development project involves a total of five open cut gold mines, the first one is extracting ore from the Porphyry deposit, previous mining of this deposit has produced 144,000 ounces of gold. Other mines include Wallbrook, Deep South, Enterprise and Whirling Dervish. Gold production from the Carosue Dam project is expect to firm Saracen Holdings as a mid-tier Australian gold producer and this appears to be on track as it produced 9,600 ounces in its very first month of operation. This performance alone brought in revenue totalling $10.5 million. It currently employs approximately 200 people, including contractors, who are expected to produce between 100,000 and 120,000 ounces of gold a year in the first instance. A production level that should grow to 150,000 ounces a year as higher grades are encountered.

Saracen operate the Carosue Dam mining project on a fly in fly out basis from Perth or as a drive in drive out opportunity for workers and contractors living in Kalgoorlie.. The salaries paid by the company are very competitive to that paid in the mining industry generally and the rosters are purposely designed to be flexible enough to fit into most peoples style of living. Most employees work either a five on two off, four on three off, eight on six off, or 15 on 13 off.