Kalgoorlie Super Pit
I was fascinated by a tour of the "Super Pit" gold mine in Kalgoorlie this week.
The “Super Pit” in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, is Australia's largest open cut gold mine.
Set right on the edge of the town, the vast rock pile is the dominating feature of the town.
Since 1893, when Irishman Paddy Hannan started the rush after his famous gold discovery,
more than 50 million ounces (1,550 t) of gold have been mined from the Golden Mile.
(at todays price of approx $1642 per ounce that’s over $ 8o Billion dollars ! )
The Super Pit currently 3.5km long, 1.5km wide and 400m deep (can be seen from space)
and will eventually stretch 3.9km long, 1.6km wide and reach a depth exceeding 500m.
Approved long-term development over the years to 2020 will see the Super Pit
work the sides of its current 2.7sq klm pit and exceed 500 metres in depth.
KCGMs geologists continue to drill exploration holes and seek every opportunity
to add to the mine ore reserves and life of the operation. Key potential lies in
improved processing techniques and technology which offer the potential to
extract further gold from previously processed waste material.
Up to 850,000 ounces of gold a year are produced from the Super Pit and the
underground operation Mount Charlotte. ($1,395,700,000 @ $1,642 current)
The Super Pit is mined 24 hours a day, every day of the year.
“Fimiston Open Pit”, (its formal title) it is owned by Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines,
a company owned 50/50 by Barrick Gold Corporation and Newmont Mining Corporation.
The mine produces 850,000 ounces (28 tonnes) of gold each year,
The Super Pit employs around 550 employees directly on site.
Originally consisting of a number of small underground mines, Alan Bond mounted an
unsuccessful takeover bid in an attempt to consolidate it into a single open pit mine.
The Super Pit was eventually created in 1989 by Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines Pty Ltd.
Barrick Gold acquired its 50% share in2001, when it took over Homestake Mining Company .
Newmont acquired its 50% 3 month later, when it acquired Normandy Mining in Feb 2002.
Most of the gold mined occurs within ore lodes formed by ancient shears in a rock unit
called the Golden Mile Dolerite. As the result, the area is known as the Golden Mile.
The Golden Mile lode is unusual in that the Gold is present as telluride minerals within pyrite.
The old timers did an excellent job of removing the gold during the ninety years
of underground mining. The gold KCGM extracts now isn’t visible to the naked eye.
It has to be processed, concentrated and eventually poured into gold bars.
The ore must be crushed, then passed through a gravity circuit to recover any gold nuggets
(the small amount of free gold present in some higher-grade lodes) and then subjected
to flotation to produce an auriferous pyrite concentrate which produces most of the gold.
This is then roasted at a smelter to liberate the gold from the tellurides and doré bars poured.
Mining is via conventional drill and blast mining via face shovels and dump trucks.
Around 15 million tonnes of rock is moved in any given year, consisting primarily of waste rock.
Looks incredibly sophisticated and the scale is just enormous,
but at the end of the day its as basic as playing trucks in the sandpit
Its all about the number of truckloads per day.
Essentially the Super Pit production is based around the work of 4 massive shovels
and a fleet of around 40 huge caterpillar trucks.
Shovels
These are two of the four main shovels at the Super Pit
They are Komatsu PC8000 hydraulic face shovels.
$17million each and shovel 50 tonnes per bucket
In under 4 minutes they can shovel and load a 225 tonne
truck in four loads – generally around 160 tonnes.
They operate around 7,000 per year (over 19 hours per day)
Trucks
The Caterpillar 793 have a load capacity of 225 tonnes
The trucks typically carry around 160 tonnes
and can be loaded by these shovels in under 4 minutes.
Around 35 of the fleet of 40 trucks are running at any time.
On average it takes around 35 minutes for a truck to be loaded,
haul out of the pit, dump its load and return to the shovel.
About two thirds of this time is taken up in hauling out of the pit.
They haul up the 1:10 gradient roads at about 10 kph
They go back down at around 25kph, top speed about 50kph.
The trucks are $3 million each, tyres are $60,000 each
Maintenance/ petrol over its 5 year? life is typically $12 million
The trucks average around 16 loads/trips per 12 hour shift
A CAT 793 haul truck carries 225 tonnes of rock.
With an average grade of just over 2 grams per tonne,
the truck carries between 450 and 500 grams of gold.
If it was all in one lump it would be about the size of a golf ball.
Unfortunately not every truck has gold in it – only 1 in 6
So 5 out of 6 trucks carry waste or low grade material.
Truck drivers earn around $100,000 per annum
These days they work 12 hour shifts: 7 days on - 7 days off
e machinery undergo regular scheduled maintenance to avoid
large periods of down time. The sheds are required to be massive,
with a tipped truck reaching heights of 10 meters.
Dozers
4 dozers are responsible for keeping the floors of the pits level.
They do this using high precision GPS data. Using GPS satellites,
the dozers keep the ground to within 30 centimeters of design.
The dozers also make sure no sharp rocks stick out of the ground,
and quickly clear any rocks that fall off the back of the trucks.
This protects the truck tyres from damage. ($60,000 per tyre)
Profits
It seems hard to imagine how you could profit from
Only a golfball size piece of gold from every 6th Trucks...
Cutting, hauling & processing 1,200 tonnes of rock for only
8 ounces of gold at the current $1642 is only $13,136
It only starts to make sense when you consider the numbers
35 trucks, each making 16 trips per 12 hour shift
That’s 560 per shift or 1,120 shifts per 24 hour day
At 1 in 6 good loads its 187 gold ‘golf balls’ per day
which works to almost $2.5m per day ($2,456,432)
If you multiply that by 365 days per year its 546,040 ounces
That’s an absolutely staggering $896,597,680 pa !!!!
Adding production from their underground golden mile mine
It comes to some 850,000 ounces pa or $1,395,7000,000
(almost as much as a major banks makes.. in a quarter !)
But it hasn’t always been this good, the current mining boom
is spurred on by huge increases in gold prices.
Currently $1,642 per ounce for 850,00 ounces $1,395,700,000
In 2009 the price was just $609 per ounce equiv $517,650,000
In 2002 the price was only $220 per ounce equiv $187,000,000
Kalgoorlie Super Pit
I was fascinated by a tour of the "Super Pit" gold mine in Kalgoorlie this week.
The “Super Pit” in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, is Australia's largest open cut gold mine.
Set right on the edge of the town, the vast rock pile is the dominating feature of the town.
Since 1893, when Irishman Paddy Hannan started the rush after his famous gold discovery,
more than 50 million ounces (1,550 t) of gold have been mined from the Golden Mile.
(at todays price of approx $1642 per ounce that’s over $ 8o Billion dollars ! )
The Super Pit currently 3.5km long, 1.5km wide and 400m deep (can be seen from space)
and will eventually stretch 3.9km long, 1.6km wide and reach a depth exceeding 500m.
Approved long-term development over the years to 2020 will see the Super Pit
work the sides of its current 2.7sq klm pit and exceed 500 metres in depth.
KCGMs geologists continue to drill exploration holes and seek every opportunity
to add to the mine ore reserves and life of the operation. Key potential lies in
improved processing techniques and technology which offer the potential to
extract further gold from previously processed waste material.
Up to 850,000 ounces of gold a year are produced from the Super Pit and the
underground operation Mount Charlotte. ($1,395,700,000 @ $1,642 current)
The Super Pit is mined 24 hours a day, every day of the year.
“Fimiston Open Pit”, (its formal title) it is owned by Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines,
a company owned 50/50 by Barrick Gold Corporation and Newmont Mining Corporation.
The mine produces 850,000 ounces (28 tonnes) of gold each year,
The Super Pit employs around 550 employees directly on site.
Originally consisting of a number of small underground mines, Alan Bond mounted an
unsuccessful takeover bid in an attempt to consolidate it into a single open pit mine.
The Super Pit was eventually created in 1989 by Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines Pty Ltd.
Barrick Gold acquired its 50% share in2001, when it took over Homestake Mining Company .
Newmont acquired its 50% 3 month later, when it acquired Normandy Mining in Feb 2002.
Most of the gold mined occurs within ore lodes formed by ancient shears in a rock unit
called the Golden Mile Dolerite. As the result, the area is known as the Golden Mile.
The Golden Mile lode is unusual in that the Gold is present as telluride minerals within pyrite.
The old timers did an excellent job of removing the gold during the ninety years
of underground mining. The gold KCGM extracts now isn’t visible to the naked eye.
It has to be processed, concentrated and eventually poured into gold bars.
The ore must be crushed, then passed through a gravity circuit to recover any gold nuggets
(the small amount of free gold present in some higher-grade lodes) and then subjected
to flotation to produce an auriferous pyrite concentrate which produces most of the gold.
This is then roasted at a smelter to liberate the gold from the tellurides and doré bars poured.
Mining is via conventional drill and blast mining via face shovels and dump trucks.
Around 15 million tonnes of rock is moved in any given year, consisting primarily of waste rock.
Looks incredibly sophisticated and the scale is just enormous,
but at the end of the day its as basic as playing trucks in the sandpit
Its all about the number of truckloads per day.
Essentially the Super Pit production is based around the work of 4 massive shovels
and a fleet of around 40 huge caterpillar trucks.
Shovels
These are two of the four main shovels at the Super Pit
They are Komatsu PC8000 hydraulic face shovels.
$17million each and shovel 50 tonnes per bucket
In under 4 minutes they can shovel and load a 225 tonne
truck in four loads – generally around 160 tonnes.
They operate around 7,000 per year (over 19 hours per day)
Trucks
The Caterpillar 793 have a load capacity of 225 tonnes
The trucks typically carry around 160 tonnes
and can be loaded by these shovels in under 4 minutes.
Around 35 of the fleet of 40 trucks are running at any time.
On average it takes around 35 minutes for a truck to be loaded,
haul out of the pit, dump its load and return to the shovel.
About two thirds of this time is taken up in hauling out of the pit.
They haul up the 1:10 gradient roads at about 10 kph
They go back down at around 25kph, top speed about 50kph.
The trucks are $3 million each, tyres are $60,000 each
Maintenance/ petrol over its 5 year? life is typically $12 million
The trucks average around 16 loads/trips per 12 hour shift
A CAT 793 haul truck carries 225 tonnes of rock.
With an average grade of just over 2 grams per tonne,
the truck carries between 450 and 500 grams of gold.
If it was all in one lump it would be about the size of a golf ball.
Unfortunately not every truck has gold in it – only 1 in 6
So 5 out of 6 trucks carry waste or low grade material.
Truck drivers earn around $100,000 per annum
These days they work 12 hour shifts: 7 days on - 7 days off
e machinery undergo regular scheduled maintenance to avoid
large periods of down time. The sheds are required to be massive,
with a tipped truck reaching heights of 10 meters.
Dozers
4 dozers are responsible for keeping the floors of the pits level.
They do this using high precision GPS data. Using GPS satellites,
the dozers keep the ground to within 30 centimeters of design.
The dozers also make sure no sharp rocks stick out of the ground,
and quickly clear any rocks that fall off the back of the trucks.
This protects the truck tyres from damage. ($60,000 per tyre)
Profits
It seems hard to imagine how you could profit from
Only a golfball size piece of gold from every 6th Trucks...
Cutting, hauling & processing 1,200 tonnes of rock for only
8 ounces of gold at the current $1642 is only $13,136
It only starts to make sense when you consider the numbers
35 trucks, each making 16 trips per 12 hour shift
That’s 560 per shift or 1,120 shifts per 24 hour day
At 1 in 6 good loads its 187 gold ‘golf balls’ per day
which works to almost $2.5m per day ($2,456,432)
If you multiply that by 365 days per year its 546,040 ounces
That’s an absolutely staggering $896,597,680 pa !!!!
Adding production from their underground golden mile mine
It comes to some 850,000 ounces pa or $1,395,7000,000
(almost as much as a major banks makes.. in a quarter !)
But it hasn’t always been this good, the current mining boom
is spurred on by huge increases in gold prices.
Currently $1,642 per ounce for 850,00 ounces $1,395,700,000
In 2009 the price was just $609 per ounce equiv $517,650,000
In 2002 the price was only $220 per ounce equiv $187,000,000