Enterprise porphyry

The Enterprise-Porphyry open cut gold mine, a part of the Saracen Mineral Holdings Porphyry District Project, is located 120 kilometres north east of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia and about 50 kilometres from the Carosue Dam Gold Processing Plant.

The Enterprise-Porphyry Mine is Only Four Kilometres From the Porphyry-Edjudina Mine
The Enterprise-Porphyry deposit is only four kilometres east of the
Porphyry deposit where Saracen developed its first mine in the group of five mines, the Porphyry-Edjudina Mine. Gold resources at the Enterprise- Porphyry Mine are currently standing at 98,000 ounces with 41,000 ounces in reserve.

Mining at Enterprise-Porphyry Mine Commenced in 2011
Mining began at Enterprise-Porphyry mine during the March quarter of 2011 and all of its production is included with the Porphyry and Margaret deposits. This is done to facilitate shared workshop and office facilities and to assist with scheduling flexibility. The Enterprise-Porphyry operation consists of the one open pit at the present time although there is the potential to mine further open pits to more fully exploit the deposit, as there are numerous places where deposits break the surface with gradings of two grams per tonne. These outcropping are being brought into the mine plan for the current financial year.

New Enterprise-Porphyry Haulage Road Leads to Carosue Dam Operations
Saracen Mineral Holdings have established a new haulage road to the south of the Enterprise-Porphyry mine site that connects the pit to the existing Porphyry haulage road that links all the site haulage roads to the Carosue Dam Gold Processing Plant. The Carosue Dam Operations (CDO) includes a modern accommodation village along with other necessary infrastructure, as well as the processing plant. All operations are within the South Laverton Gold Fields.

Processing Plant Commissioned in 2000
The Carosue Dam processing plant was built by JR Engineering in 2000 and it continued working until June 2005 when the whole operation was placed on care and maintenance owing to low gold prices at the time. The operation remained closed until February 2006 until Saracen Mineral Holdings acquired the South Laverton tenements off St Barbara Limited. The purchase included the processing plant. When Saracen took over it found the treatment plant and associated infrastructure in near perfect running order that required minimal refurbishment. By late 2009 the plant was operating at full capacity, processing 2.4 million tonnes a year. The processing plant was only designed to handle 2 million tonnes of ore a year but it was found that if the mill feed consisted of blending soft oxide with transitional ore types the capacity could be increased to 2.4 million tonnes.

The processing plant flow at Carosue Dam is quite simple as it uses a two stage crusher to deliver a product size of 30mm and a single stage grinder to reduce that to 160 microns. Gold is recovered by means of gravity concentration and CIL (carbon-in-leach) cyandidation. During its original five year operating life the plant handled more than 10 million tonnes of gold ore averaging 2.2 million tonnes annually. It produced 700,000 ounces of gold during that time.
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