Boddington

Overview

Australia's newest gold mine, Newmont Boddington Gold, commenced plant start-up in July 2009.

Over 14,000 employees and contractors worked more than 14 million man hours to start up the project.

At year end 2010 the mine had reserves of 20 million ounces of gold and 2.4 billion pounds of copper.

At full production Boddington would be Australia's largest gold producer. 

Location

The Boddington mine is located in Western Australia some 14 km northwest of the town of Boddington which is 120 km south-east of Perth.

The town's economy is supported by mining and agriculture.

Western Australia occupies the whole western part of the continent. Its economy is largely driven by extraction and processing of a diverse range of mineral and petroleum commodities. The state contributes an estimated 58 percent of Australia's Mineral and Energy Exports.

Geology and Mineralization

Boddington is a gold in greenstone belt hosted structural zone deposit. It is located within the Saddleback Greenstone Belt consisting of Archaean volcanic and shallow level intrusive rocks.

The main zone of gold mineralization occurs reasonably continuously over a strike length of over five kilometres and a width of about one kilometre. The oxide gold mineralisation forms a semi-continuous blanket within the upper iron-rich laterite, with more erratic gold distribution in the lower zones. The basement rocks below the oxide zone host gold mineralisation with a variety of geological styles, predominantly in andesitic volcanics and diorite dykes.

Mining & Operation

The mining operation consists of two large open pits. 100mtpa average ex-pit mining rate. 1:1 ore / waste stripping ratio.

As of May 2012, Newmont was seeeking to expnd the mine life to 2052 by combining the north and south Wandoo open pits. The waste rock facility is to be expanded as well to 2 billion metric tons.

Processing

Very tough hard rock is subjected to three stage crushing plus single stage grinding: coarse crushing, fine crushing and screening at process plant, and milling. The ground ore is conveyed to the treatment plant.

The initial stage is copper and gold flotation which results in the production of a 18% copper concentrate. The concentrate then runs through a gravity circuit for the recovery of free gold fraction. The copper-gold concentrate is then ship delivered to smelters.

 Flotation tailings are subjected to CIL leaching and the resulting dore is shipped to refineries.

The operation is expected to produce 850,000 oz gold and 30,000 t of copper per year.

Environment & Community

Newmont operates in compliance with applicable laws, regulations and other legal requirements. In addition to this mandate, its internal management system includes a global set of performance standards. Its goal is continuous improvement, and it regularly measure itself against these performance criteria to track its progress.

The proposed 2012 pit expansion would necesitate the clearance of 1,150 hectares of state and privately owned jarrah forest over the next 20-40 years.

Boddington mining operation employs about 900 people and create indirect employment for another 1,100 in the region. It contributes an estimated A$770 million per year to the Western Australia economy.