LOAD & HAUL
AU$1.7 billion today, Northern Star grew through acquisition but has been shifting its focus to exploration and organic production growth. T e miner tripled its exploration budget to AU$50 million during the 2015 fi nancial year, adding 2.7 million ounces of gold resources at a discovery cost of around AU$19 per ounce to increase Northern Star’s total resource base to 8.9 million ounces. Since a series of high-grade, low-cost acquisitions in 2014, Northern Star has invested heavily in near-mine and in- mine exploration to grow its resource bases. T at was the formula for success at Paulsens, the company’s fi rst purchase in 2010. T e sellers forecast the mine to be 50,000 ounces away from fi nal depletion, but Northern Star produced more than 80,000 ounces there during its fi rst year, all while cutting costs by 13% and extending the mine life through exploration drilling. Paulsens has since produced more than 400,000 ounces. Northern Star is replicating the
Paulsens turnaround at Plutonic, a mine several of its executives were already very familiar with after having held senior positions there during previous careers. Historically, Plutonic has produced
more than 5.4 million ounces of gold over two decades of mining and when Northern Star acquired it from Barrick Gold for AU$25 million in February 2014, its resources were 1.75 million ounces at 10.8 grams per tonne. In addition to identifying four
new resource areas to be developed around Plutonic through 120,000m of diamond drilling last year – including the Hermes open pit deposit the company hopes to bring online during 2016 – Northern Star has produced more than 150,000 ounces from remnant mining at Plutonic over the past two years, all with fewer people and a smaller fl eet of mobile equipment.
20
www.engineerlive.com
Hauling overhaul Soon after taking over Plutonic, Northern Star replaced fi ve ageing underground trucks with three new 63-tonne Sandvik TH663 trucks. T e new fl eet immediately improved productivity, hauling more ore than the fi ve they replaced while burning fewer litres of fuel and costing signifi cantly less to operate. Plutonic project manager Craig Bolton quantifi es the value of the new fl eet in tonne-kilometres (TKMs), a
The morning pre-start meetings at Plutonic mine are quick yet thorough
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52