North point

The North Point gold mine midway between Adelaide River and Pine Creek, in the Northern Territory Goldfield Region, 150 kilometres south of Darwin, is situated in an area that has been mined on and off since the 1800's. It is an area well known for the discovery of large nuggets of gold, the largest weighing 700 ounces.

North Point Mine was Operated as an Underground Mine in 1901
A shaft was sunk at North Point in 1901that consisted of three compartments. Two cross-cuts were dug out in a westerly direction, one at 42 metres and the other at 62 metres, more or less for prospecting purposes. A lode was discovered at the 62 metre cross cut that returned an average of five grams a tonne over an area of 20 metres before petering out.

North Point is Part of the Crocodile Gold Corporation Burnside Project
A Canadian gold exploration company GBS Gold, that was previously known as Emerson Exploration Australia, carried out exploration work at North Point in 2007 in an effort to expand the known gold resources of the area. GBS eventually took over Northern Gold, a company that was in a joint venture arrangement with Harmony Gold in the developing of the Burnside Project at that time. Harmony Gold finished up selling its half of the Burnside Project to Northern Gold. North Point is a part of the Burnside Project.

North Point was a Small Mining Operation
The North Point open pit gold mine was mined by means of a conventional open pit method of blasting, excavating and hauling away the ore to be processed. As it was a reasonably small operation the life of the mine was short lived. The open pit intersected with the water table and de-watering had to be applied during the mining operation. The ore extracted from the site was processed off site at the Union Reef Gold Mine Processing Plant.

Infrastructure Costs kept to a Minimum at North Point Mine
Crocodile Gold Corporation did not have to construct much infrastructure at the North Point Mine owing to the project being carried out on a relatively small scale and the treatment plant being off site.

The only construction work needed was the following:
- The building of a generator to provide power for the site's lighting needs as well as a refuelling and contractors lay down area
- The building of an amenities block, mobile site office, waste storage area and mobile ablutions block
- The construction of access and haulage roads
- A de-watering system and water storage tanks along with a pipeline from the North Point Mine to the disused Yam Creek Mine pit.
- A waste rock dump and sediment dam
- Run-of-mine (ROM) pad
- The open pit itself

The North Point open pit mine is situated within close proximity of both the Adelaide to Darwin railway and the Stuart Highway. There is a 200 personnel camp at the nearby Cosmo/Howley deposit and about 3.7 million ounces of gold has been produced to date from the total Crocodile Gold tenements in the Northern Territory
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