Heavy rain has impacted the operations of Australia’s gold mining sector, with cyclones across swathes of the nation blamed for a drop in production.
Production at Australian gold mines fell to 70 tonnes in the first quarter of 2024 compared with 77 tonnes in the December quarter 2023.
This was due to a series of cyclones moving inland and dumping massive amounts of rain across Australia’s main gold producing regions.
Consultancy Surbiton Associates said almost two dozen mines in Western Australia (WA), Queensland, and the Northern Territory (NT) reported production problems due to rain and flooding.
“Wet weather makes haul roads dangerous and greasy. Wet ore ‘hangs up’ in ore bins, is difficult to crush and sticks to conveyor belts,” Director Sandra Close said.
“In this quarter, some open pits were flooded and mining ceased.
“At some underground mines, where the workings are accessed by decline from near the base of an existing open pit. It was impossible to haul ore to the treatment plants.”
Fuel oil supply was disrupted at some mines while others reported power outages due to high rainfall damaging power grids causing electricity supplies to fail.
Operations reporting lower gold output included Tropicana, 330 kilometres east of Kalgoorlie which is down 59,000 ounces, and Tanami in the central NT which is down 46,000 ounces.
Production increased at Cadia in New South Wales, up 25,000 ounces compared with the previous quarter and Bellevue, WA, where production increased by almost 22,000 ounces.
However, most companies are maintaining production forecasts for calendar 2024, with losses aimed to be made up over the remainder of the year.
Australia’s largest gold producers for the first quarter of 2024 were Newmont’s Boddington, Cadia, and Tanami projects, the Northern Star Resources-owned Super Pit and Evolution Mining’s Cowal mine.
