Burbanks Gold Mine
Encyclopedia
The Burbanks Gold Mine is a gold mine
Gold mining
Gold mining is the removal of gold from the ground. There are several techniques and processes by which gold may be extracted from the earth.-History:...

 located 9 km south east of Coolgardie
Coolgardie, Western Australia
Coolgardie is a small town in the Australian state of Western Australia, east of the state capital, Perth. It has a population of approximately 800 people....

, Western Australia
Western Australia
Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...

.

It is currently owned by Barra Resources Limited.

History

The Burbanks deposit historically produced over 400,000 ounces of gold from both underground and open pit
Open-pit mining
Open-pit mining or opencast mining refers to a method of extracting rock or minerals from the earth by their removal from an open pit or borrow....

 mining. Small scale mining still continued in the late 1990s. From 1887 to 1914, the mine was the highest grade gold mine in Western Australia with 22.7 grams of gold per tonne. It was mined by WMC Resources
WMC Resources
WMC Resources Limited was an Australian diversified mining and fertilizer company formerly listed on the Australian Stock Exchange. WMC was an acronym for Western Mining Corporation. It was delisted on 29 June 2005 following a successful takeover by BHP Billiton...

 in the early 1950s but closed down in 1991.

Barra acquired the mine in September 2000 from WMC and mined the deposit in an underground operation, developing a decline from the already existing Lady Robinson pit from July 2006. After mining 24,900 ounces of gold, Barra stopped the operation in August 2007, allowing it to pursue an exploration campaign. In late 2007, Barra believed to have made one of the most spectacular gold discoveries in Australian resources history, hitting an intersection yielding a very high 10,300 grams of gold per tonne, at 350 metres below surface, in a vicinity where no drilling had been carried out before.

In June 2009, Burbanks recommenced gold production in a mining and profit-share arrangement between Barra and Mulgabbie Mining Pty Ltd. Ore will be treated at the Burbanks production facility of Ramelius Resources, which the company usually utilises for its own Wattle Dam Gold Mine
Wattle Dam Gold Mine
The Wattle Dam Gold Mine is a gold mine located 25 km south west of Kambalda, Western Australia.It is currently owned by Ramelius Resources...

.

Production

Production of the mine:
Year Production Grade Cost per ounce
1997 5,405 ounces 3.3 g/t
1998 2,253 ounces 13.4 g/t
1999 783 ounces 1 19.2 g/t
2006-07 17,840 ounces 3.64 g/t
2007-08 inactive
2008-09 inactive
  • 1 First quarter of 1999 only.

Sources


External links

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