Mine Details
Kundana
http://www.barrick.com/operations/australia-pacific/kanowna/default.aspx
gold, silver, Kalgoorlie/Coolgardie, DiDo
Phone:
Address:
, Kalgoorlie, WA, 6430
State: , Kalgoorlie, WA, 6430
Email:
The Kundana gold deposit is situated only 21 kilometres west of Kalgoorlie in the Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia. The Kundana gold mine itself is actually made up of three individual gold mines; Hornet, Rubicon and Raleigh. They are all underground operations that share the same carbon-in-leach processing plant.
Mining at Kundana has Proven Suitable for Narrow Vein Mining Operations
The prime method of mining at the Kundana gold mine is by long-hole bench stoping, following which it is backfilled. The usual length of the long-hole being between 12 to 15 metres if backfilled with waste rock. The height is normally between 10 and 15 metres. This is sufficient to gain access to the ore that averages a width from being only a few centimetres to one and a half metres thick. The Kundana mine has traditionally been worked via a long-hole open stope benching method but during recent years this practice has been replaced with long-hole bench stoping incorporating rock backfill, a method more suitable to narrow vein mining.
Processing Kundana Gold at the Kanowna Belle Plant
The gold processing for the Kundana gold mine is carried out on site at the Kanowna Belle Gold Processing Plant. The Kanowna plant processes two million tonnes a year of free milling and refractory ore that is extracted from the Kandana operations. In 2011 the plant produced around 226,000 ounces of gold, valued at that time, at around $752 an ounce. Gold reserves at the end of 2011, both probable and proven, were estimated as being in the area of 832,000 ounces.
The Kundana gold mine consist of free milling as well as refractory suitable ore bodies:
Ongoing Drilling to Prove up Further Resources
At the end of the 2011 financial year, a Kundana joint venture shareholder, Tribune Resources, announced that a further three drilling projects would be undertaken at the Kundana mine site. These drilling programs were to take the form of ultra deep holes through the down dip extension of the Raleigh main ore body at the southern end of the ore deposit, below the Rubicon pit and the testing of mineralisation at the Hornet, 'Mary' fault.
Three Shareholders in the East Kundara Joint Venture
The largest shareholder of the Kundana gold mine is giant global miner, Barrick Gold Corporation. Barrick has its head office in Canada and operates 27 mines and many exploration projects in five continents. It operates 10 mines in the Australia/Pacific area. Its Australian headquarters is located in Perth, Western Australia. Barrick Gold Corporation's fully owned subsidiary Gilt Edge Mining NL is the largest shareholder of the Kundana mining operations. Tribune Resources Limited is the next largest shareholder, the other joint venture partner is Rand Mining Limited. Both Tribune and Rand are a Perth based mining companies.
Update- 51% ownership in the Kundana operations was acquired by Northern Star Resources Ltd from Gilt-Edge Mining, a wholly owned subsidiary of Barrick Gold, on March 1st 2014.
