Info Mine

GREAT GREA T MINES MINES – Newm Newmont ont

 Access  Acce ss Asia Pacific

Newmont’s assets in Australasia and Indonesia are diverse, including a variety of mining approaches and mine settings, reports Paul Moore he Asia-Pacific region represents one of

T

of 50-50 joint venture partners Newmont

Caterpillar 793 trucks line up to be loaded by a P&H 

Newmont’ss largest production areas in Newmont’

Australia and Barrick Gold Australia. In New

 shovel, Batu Hijau mine, Indonesia

terms of annual gold output, and is on

Zealand, Newmont operates the Favona

par with Newmont’s North American assets

underground mine and the Martha open pit

still subject to finalisation prior to the main

centred in Nevada.

mine in Waihi on the North Island.

2010 results announcement on February 24.

The division, referred to as Newmont Asia

In Indonesia on the island of Sumbawa is

There are various growth opportunities within

Pacific or Newmont APAC, has four major

the PT Newmont Nusa Tenggara (PTNNT)

Newmont APAC, ranging from entirely new

sites in Australia and one in New Zealand, as

majority owned and operated mine at Batu

projects such as Elang in Indonesia, to

well as one large mine in Indonesia.

Hijau. PTNNT, itself a Newmont

extensive in-mine and near-mine expansions

Indonesia/Sumitomo joint venture owns 56%,

such as Tanami Shaft Stage 3 and the Golden

underground gold operations in the Northern

with PT Pukuafu Indah (20%) and PT Multi

Pike project at KCGM.

Territory’s Tanami desert which exploit the

Daerah Bersaing (24%) the remaining

Callie orebody, orebody, the Jundee underground gold

shareholders. Newmont has been operating

Boddington

operation near Wiluna in Western Australia

the mine since 2000.

In 1980, geologists from Reynolds Australia

The Australian sites include the Tanami

and the flagship asset, the Boddington surface

The regional office for Newmont’s APAC

Mines (part of the Worsley Alumina Joint

gold mine near Perth in Western Australia.

Operations is in Subiaco, Western Australia,

Venture) Ventur e) discovered gold bearing laterite near

Beyond these fully owned assets is The Super

located within the greater Perth metropolitan

the town of Boddington when investigating a

Pit, which is managed by Kalgoorlie

area. The attached table shows the latest

base metal and gold geochemical anomaly

Consolidated Gold Mines (KCGM) on behalf

results for the APAC operations, which were

defined by the Geological Survey of Western Australia in 1978. In 1981, gold mining began

Newmont APAC 2010 preliminary results

at Boddington Gold Mine and by 1989, it was the largest gold producer in Australia

Boddington – Gold Other Australia/NZ Batu Hijau – Gold Boddington Batu Hijau

Estimated attributable Estim Estimated ated attributable Estimated consolidated prod (‘000 oz) sales (‘000 oz) costs attributable to sales in $/oz 728 679 $590 1,075 1,078 $546 364 324 $237 Copper (Mlbs) Copper (Mlbs) Copper ($/lb) 58 50 $1.86 269 242 $0.69

producing an average of 400,000 oz/y of gold and a total of 4 Moz during its life. Newmont’ss current Boddington operation, Newmont’ Newmont Boddington Gold (NBG) is an expansion of this original mine that operated from 1987 to 2001. It is a large, open pit mining operation about 130 km southeast of Perth. Newmont purchased the remaining 33.33 % interest in the Boddington project from its joint venture partner AngloGold

8 International Mining MARCH 2011

GREAT MINES – Newmont

Ashanti in the first quarter of 2009. The project moved into operation in September 2009, and the first gold was poured in 29 September 2009. Commercial production was achieved on 20 November 2009. About 50% of the total gold produced and all the copper is transported in 200,000 t of concentrate from Boddington to the port of Bunbury and exported to markets in Europe and Asia. The 2011 gold production at

Two 60 x 113 Fuller Crushers

Five Metso MP1000 Crushers Four 12’ x 24’ Schenck Coarse Screens

years. The annual ore production rate is 35-38 Mt/y. The oxide gold ore is conveyed to the

Four 2.4 m x 1.65 m Krupp HPGR’s Capacity (8,000 t/h)

plant via conveyor following primary crushing. The rock is very hard andesite and diorite, up to 250 Mpa, with the processing circuit employing three crushing stages, including a

Eight 12’ x 26’ Schenck Banana Screens Four 15.6 MW Metso Ball Mills (26’ x 44.5’)

tertiary stage use of High Pressure Grinding Rolls (HPGR) from Polysius, which are followed by ball milling. The resulting slurry then goes through an Outotec flotation process where the material is separated into two streams. One stream is filtered to provide a concentrate containing all the copper and 50% of the gold. The second stream goes through a carbon-in-leach (CIL) extraction process. Gold recovered in the CIL circuit represents about 50% of total gold production. The process utilises flash flotation technology from Outotec, which is the “instantaneous” flotation of liberated, high grade particles from the recirculating load in the grinding circuit. It includes four flash flotation SkimAir 1800 units which form part of the complete flotation circuit.

The Boddington mine process flowsheet and 

Caterpillar 793D trucks teamed with Bucyrus

 schematic of mill layout 

495 shovels  (see table for full fleet details). The

the NBG project was awarded by Aker

ultimate dimensions for the main pit under

Kvaerner Clough Murray Roberts (AKCMR) to

Boddington is expected to be approximately

the current mine plan will be a length of 4 km,

FLSmidth Conveyor Engineering in August of

750,000-800,000 oz at costs applicable to

a width of 1 km and a 700 m depth. There are

2006. The contract involved the design and

sales of approximately $580 to $620 per

14 planned stages of pit development and the

manufacture of fifteen conveyors and

ounce on a co-product basis. The Boddington

overall pit slope will be 25° with the slope

seventeen belt feeders with belt widths

deposit is located within the underexplored

made up of about 650 m of bedrock and 50-

ranging from 450 mm to 2,400 mm and

Saddleback Greenstone Belt, a fault bounded

150 m of oxide ore.

conveyor lengths from 16 m to 2,172 m. The

sliver of Achaean volcanic and shallow level

The drilling fleet uses 216 mm production

The conveyor and belt feeder contract for

total motor power added up to over 16,700

intrusive rocks, surrounded by granitic and

holes and 165 mm presplit holes, with

kW, the total length of all belting was almost

gneissic rocks. Total proven and probable

explosives delivery conducted by Orica via its

11.5 km, and the total fabricated steel weight

reserves were 21 Moz at year end in 2009

Total Down Hole Service with up to four

was approximately 3,700 t.

resulting in an expected mine life of more than

mobile manufacturing units (MMU). Explosives

24 years. Extensions of the Boddington pit are

delivery capability is 130 t/d with a 70-30

two gyratory crushers where the primary

being evaluated.

emulsion / ANFO mix.

crushed ore is carried up through a tunnel on a

Production is from two open pits, with the conventional truck and shovel fleet using

10 International Mining MARCH 2011

The peak material movement will be 100120 Mt/y during the current early development

The overland conveying circuit starts below

2.2 m wide acceleration conveyor that discharges onto the overland conveyor. With a

GREAT MINES – Newmont

DrillNav Plus and

Outotec TankCells at  Boddington mine

DigNav JS. Five

New BGM timeline

LocataLites are

May 2002: Newmont acquires 44.44% of BGM following acquisition of Normandy

positioned around

Boddington Pty Ltd, as part of the Normandy

the rim of the

Mining takeover

NBG southern pit,

Oct 2002: Project management is assumed

and transmit

by the BGM Management Company on

unobstructed

behalf of the BGM Joint Venture owners.

signals to

Feb 2006: Board approval of the Boddington

machinery

Expansion Project is announced by BGM’s

mounted

Joint Venture partners

receivers.This

Mar 2006: Newmont Boddington (a

deployment is

Newmont subsidiary) completes acquisition

known as a

of the 22.22% interest in the Boddington

LocataNet.. Each

project from Newcrest Operations

LocataLite site is

Aug 2006: Moorditj Booja Community

semi-permanent

capacity of 8,000 t/h, the overland conveyor’s

installed with an antennae mast, solar panels

Partnership Agreement with Gnaala Karla

1.8 m wide belt runs a distance of 2,172 m

to charge batteries, and a LocataLite housed

Booja People, South West Aboriginal Land &

with a rise of 120 m up to the top of a 40 m

within an environmental protective enclosure.

Sea Council & BGM Management Company

high stockpile. Dual 2,800 kW motors drive

The antennae mast contains two spatially

Jun 2009: Saddleback Investments (a Newmont

the conveyor at almost 4.5 m/s.

separated transmit antennae and a receiver

subsidiary) completes acquisition of the

antenna. The receiver antenna is used to

33.33% interest in the Boddington project

of new GPS positioning technology. Leica has

perform TimeLoc – Locata’s proprietary precise

from AngloGold Ashanti Australia, delivering

successfully deployed a production version of

and continuous time synchronisation

Newmont an effective 100% ownership

its Locata integrated system at the mine. NBG

procedure, while the transmit antennae

Aug 2009: Newmont Boddington Gold

identified gaps in standard satellite-based GPS

broadcasts the precise dual-frequency ranging

successfully produces its first gold and

coverage at the current pit depth and chose to

and carrier signals used by the rovers.

copper concentrate, processing

The mine has also seen the implementation

adopt the Leica / Locata solution, which offers

approximately 100,000 t of ore.

complete positioning coverage for its machinery

Tanami

Sept 2009: First gold pour and first transport

fleet throughout the life of the mine.

Newmont’s Tanami operations are located on

of copper/gold from mine to Bunbury Port

Aboriginal freehold land, 540 km north-west

Nov 2009: Commercial production declared,

consist of four drills and one shovel, running

of Alice Springs. Current production comes

first shipment of concentrate from Bunbury

Leica’s high-precision machine-control systems,

from the Callie orebody at Dead Bullock Soak,

Port to overseas markets.

The Locata integrated machines currently

Fleet lists Newmont A-P surface

Haul trucks

Boddington

KCGM (50% Newmont)

Batu Hijau (PTNNT 56%)

Waihi (Martha)

40 Caterpillar 793D;

34 Caterpillar 793C

111 Caterpillar 793C

16 Caterpillar 777C

3 Caterpillar 785

4 Caterpillar 793F 6 P&H 4100A and 1

2 Hitachi EX1100 /

6 Caterpillar 789 (rental)

Excavators/loaders

3 Bucyrus 495HD rope shovels;

4 Komatsu PC8000 /

1 Bucyrus (Terex O&K) RH120

/ 1 PC2000 / 1 PC1250

2800XPA rope shovels;

1 EX1800 / 1 EX1900

and 1 RH340 hydraulic

hydraulic excavators;

2 Caterpillar 5230 and

hydraulic excavators;

excavators; 1 Caterpillar 994

Le Tourneau L-1850

1 Hitachi EX5500 hydraulic

2 Caterpillar 992C

wheel loader

wheel loader

excavators; 2 Caterpillar 994

wheel loaders

and 3 988 wheel loaders

Drill rigs

Other

2 Atlas Copco ROC L8; 2 Atlas

8 Atlas Copco D45KS

Atlas Copco 2 ROC L8,

Copco PV-271 Pit Viper; 9 Atlas

(Ausdrill contracted)

1 Pit Viper PV-351; Atlas

Copco DML; 5 Atlas Copco DML /

Copco (Ingersoll Rand)

DM45 (Ausdrill contracted)

1 DMM2 / 1 DML / 3 DMH

1 Caterpillar 16H and 2 24H

1 Caterpillar 16H graders;

5 Montabert drill rigs

Caterpillar crawler dozers

2 Caterpillar 14G graders;

graders; 4 Caterpillar 854 wheeled and 2 16M graders: 2 854G

6 D11R / 3 D10R / 4 D10T /

1 D10 and 1 D9 crawler

dozers; 3 Caterpillar D11 and

2 D8R; 4 Caterpillar 24H

dozers; 2 Komatsu D85

2 D10 crawler dozers; 1 Caterpillar 4 D10T crawler dozers:

and 2 16H graders;

dozers

785 water truck; 1 Caterpillar

4 Caterpillar water trucks

3 Caterpillar 834G scrapers

Caterpillar 966H and 930G

(2 777 and 2 785)

4 854 wheeled dozers;

wheel loaders; 4 Orica MMU (managed by Orica)

12 International Mining MARCH 2011

wheeled dozers; 1 D10R and

4 785B water trucks

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The coarse ore stockpile at Newmont Boddington Gold  Mine (BGM)

reserves to 1.64 Moz and initially extending the anticipated life of mine by a year to the end of 2015. The company continues to explore opportunities to extend the mine life. Reserves are now up to 2 Moz with production of 250,000 ounces in 2010.In November 2010, Newmont Asia Pacific announced that it had begun transitioning Callie underground operations from the long term contractor, HWE (DBS) and is processed at the Granites mill,

being adopted as the mining method to

Mining, to Newmont Tanami after approving

more than 40 km to the east of the

improve extraction selectivity.

mine life extension projects.

underground mine.

Callie is now 1.4 km deep, which is

Gold mineralisation at Callie occurs in thin

"HWE Mining has been the sole mining

impacting productivity and increasing costs per

(1-30 mm) steeply dipping quartz-chlorite

ounce. Mined ounces were replaced through

 An HWE-owned Komatsu ADT emerging from Favona

sheeted vein system that cuts across a 40°

generative exploration in 2009 increasing

adit, New Zealand 

plunging folded sequence of medium to finegrained metasediments. While the vein system is highly continuous, the gold distribution is highly variable and is controlled by the interaction of lithology, alteration, structure and vein density. The mineralisation is commonly coarse-grained and has a relatively high nugget effect, consequently the orebody is problematic to estimate and shows a high degree of sensitivity to drill hole density. Uncertainty in the estimation of the orebody was a significant factor that led to sublevel open stoping with cemented aggregate fill

Fleet lists Newmont A-P underground Jundee

Tanami (Callie)

Mt Charlotte

Waihi (Favona; mining

(KCGM; 50% Newmont)

completion expected 2011;

10 Caterpillar AD55B

Atlas Copco (Wagner)

6 Komatsu HM300-1

7 AD55

MT5000/MT5010

5 Caterpillar R2900G

Caterpillar (Elphinstone)

2 Sandvik (Toro) 1400;

R2900 and R1700

1 Sandvik (Toro) 0010

HWE contracted) Underground trucks LHDs

5 Caterpillar AD55B 6 Caterpillar R2900G (including four equipped with Minegem)

1 Sandvik LH514

Drill jumbos/prod rigs/ 4 Sandvik (Tamrock) Axera D07; 3 Sandvik (Tamrock) Solo 1 Sandvik (Tamrock) Cabolt; 7; 3 Sandvik (Tamrock) bolters

Atlas Copco M7C and

2 Sandvik (Tamrock) Axera

H1357 Simba long hole

D07; 2 Solo 5-5V production

Avera D07; 1 Sandvik

drills and M2D / 352

rigs; 1 Minimatic H205

Minimatic H205

twin boom jumbos

1 Caterpillar grader; 2 Normet

2 Caterpillar 12H and 1

Caterpillar 120G grader

6705B charging vehicles

16H graders; 2 Robbins

650W shotcreting vehicle /

raise drills (41R and 73R);

1 Charmec 1610B charging

Getman 2-500C and

vehicle; 1 Caterpillar 12H

Charmec 1610B charging

grader; 3 Volvo L120E

rigs; 4 Boart Longyear

tool carriers;

2 Sandvik (Tamrock) Solo

Other

diamond drills (2 LM75 / 2 LM90) 5 Volvo L120 wheel loaders; 1 Caterpillar 980G and 1 972G wheel loaders; 1 Caterpillar 69D truck

14 International Mining MARCH 2011

1 Normet Spraymec

GREAT MINES – Newmont

important gold and silver mines in the world, having produced 5.6 Moz of gold and 38.4 Moz of silver. Mining in the Martha pit resumed in 1987 as an open pit operation and the Favona underground mine began in 2004, producing ore from stopes since 2006. Martha and Favona produce an average of 100,000 oz of gold and 750,000 oz of silver annually. Total production in 2009 was 114,000 oz of gold and 448,886 oz of silver. HWE Mining has been responsible for the development, management and operation of the Favona underground gold mine in New Zealand since 2004. Gold was first extracted from the mine in 2006 using modified Avoca retreat long-hole  A Sandvik jumbo operating at the Callie mine, part of 

We would like to thank HWE Mining for a

benching. The contractor provides the full

Newmont’s Tanami operations. Newmont is in the

successful, collaborative partnership." The

range of underground mining services at the

 process of taking over mining responsibilities from

transition is expected to take approximately six

Favona mine. This includes mechanised

contractor HWE 

months up to May 2011, and all contractors

underground development and stoping using

operating at Callie will be offered employment

drill and blast techniques, as well as

at the mine.

maintenance and transportation services.

contractor at the Callie underground mine since 1995 and has helped make Tanami,

Equipment includes Sandvik 1400 and 0010

which has mined more than 6.5 Moz , one of

Waihi

the most productive mines in Australia," said a

Newmont Waihi Gold (NWG) operates the

statement. "However, recent Newmont

Martha open pit and Favona underground

Jundee

decisions to further invest strongly in Tanami –

mines in the coastal town of Waihi, about 150

The Jundee operations are 790 km northeast

in new projects, facilities and mining

km south of Auckland in New Zealand’s North

of Perth in the northern Yandal greenstone

infrastructure – means increased requirements

Island. The original Martha mine closed in

belt. The mine commenced production in

for owner control of day-to-day operations.

1952, and was recognised as one of the most

1995, and the operation controls some 48 ha

16 International Mining MARCH 2011

LHDs as well as Komatsu HM300 ADTs.

GREAT MINES Newmont

of mining and exploration leases over a 45 km strike. Its nearest settlement is the predominately Indigenous community of Wiluna, about 50 km north east of the mine. The gold is hosted with in 4 km long and 2.5 km wide sequence of Archaean basalts and weakly differentiated dolerite sills separated by sedimentary rocks and dacitic porphyries. Younger felsic and intermediate porphyries and dolerite dykes intrude the sequence. The mine sequence is bounded to the west by a thick sequence of felsic volcanics and volcaniclastics and mineralisation diminishes eastwards as the mafic package becomes more mag-rich to ultramafic in composition. The gold is hosted within narrow, discontinuous quartz veins (typically