Sunrise Dam

Overview

Sunrise Dam gold mine lies 220 km north-northeast of Kalgoorlie and 55 km south of Laverton in Western Australia.

The gold deposit at Sunrise Dam was discovered in August 1988 and gold mining operations started in 1995 with the first gold pour in 1997. Underground mining operations commenced in 2003. Present day owner of the mine is Anglogold Ashanti Ltd.

The mininig operation comprises an open pit operation and an underground operation. Open pit mining would be discontinued in the third quarter 2012 as the mine would have reached its final depth.

Mining is carried out by contractors and ore is treated in a conventional gravity and leach process plant.

In 2011, Sunrise Dam produced 246,000 ounces of gold.

Location

The Sunrise Dam gold mine is located in the northern goldfields of Western Australia, 220 km northeast of Kalgoorlie and 55 km south of Laverton.

Western Australia occupies the entire western third of the Australian continent. First visited by Dutch it was settled by English people in the first part of the 19th century who founded the Swan River Colony. The colony's initial misfortunes were exploited by Karl Marx in his Das Kapital book.

The state's economy is largely driven by the extraction and processing of a diverse range of mineral and petroleum commodities.

Geology & Mineralization

Located in the Laverton Tectonic Zone, the Archaean Cleo-Sunrise deposit is divided by a N-S tenement boundary.

Gold is located in three broad settings:

- Gently-dipping shear zones which are characterised by intense hydrothermal alteration and strongly deformed quartz veins;

- Steeply-dipping shear zones, which are characterized by vein stockworks and gold-rich breccias; and,

- Within Tertiary transported rocks, particularly at the base of palaeochannels. All rock types at Cleo-Sunrise are mineralised, but gold is best developed where significant structures intersect Fe-rich sedimentary rocks (BIF).

The vein and shear styles of gold mineralization are introduced primarily during the third and fourth deformation stages and variations in structural style, ore and gangue mineralogy and alteration intensity are observed locally.  

Mineral reserves as of December 2011, stood at 22.39 million tonnes grading 2.12 g/t gold for 1.53 million ounces.

In 2012, approximately $25 million was allocated to near-mine exploration to support a strategy of growing the mineral resource by 20 million tonnes by December 2013. The focus is to extend the known mineral resource on strike and at a depth of about 2 km.

Mining & Operation

The mine consists of a large open pit which is now in its fourteenth year of operation, and an underground mine which began in 2003. Mining is conducted by contractors (Barminco)..

The mining operation comprises an open pit operation and an underground operation. Open pit mining would be discontinued in the third quarter 2012 as the mine would have reached its final depth.

It is a fly-in fly-out (FIFO) operation.

Processing

The treatment plant uses conventional CIL technology and includes a gravity circuit to extract coarse gold. 

The processing plant is owned by Anglogold Ashanti.

Environment & Community

A mine closure plan is in place and progressive rehabilitation in line with this plan is being undertaken. Governance reporting for Energy Efficiency Opportunity, National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting, and National Pollutant Inventory is being maintained and is in compliance with government regulations.

Tailings contain the lowest practicable levels of cyanide and are hyper-saline as to discourage fauna from using ponded water. An electric fence surrounding the tailings serve as further deterrent for wildlife.