Kanowna Belle Gold Mine

The Kanowna Belle gold mine is in an area twenty kilo meters north east of Kalgoorlie. The two types of gold that are mined is Delta Gold NL and Geopeko Gold, these were discovered in 1989 before the construction of the mine. The building of this mine began in 1992, open pit mining took place in 1993, but now it’s underground mining. The North’s 50% share for AUS$90m was brought by Delta Gold, and is now the sole owner. The mine was bought by Barrick Gold Corp for US$10.4bn, this bought also the whole Kanowna group, which includes the Paddington mill, Kanowna Belle and other open pit mines in the area.

The mine got deeper and deeper and stopped when it reached a 7.7km long and 1020m deep. The changing from open pit to underground mining began in 1995; a shafting system was used in mid 1999. Five blocks are used to contain underground resources, these are called Block A, B, C, D and E. Block A has now been mined out but it used to be the primary target, production now occurs the most in levels B, C, D and the deepest E. In year 2004 Kanowna Belle changed its mining system from long-holed open stopping used with tailing paste backfill to a pillar less retreat mining system. The equipment cost for underground mining was AUS$13m, provided by Atlas Copco, the equipment mainly consisted of heavy mining vehicles.

The ore processing method is screening the ore, with the oversize ore being crushed to 200-250mm. There is a two stage grinding circuit which has ANI SAG and ball mills. The feed of primary flash flotation in a 23m cell is formed by cyclone underflow from the ball mill. The final tailing of the cyclone overflow treated by flotation, gets leached in a 750m tank that consists of lime and cyanide in it. The gold is then recovered from the tailings leach through four series of adsorption tanks. The gold recoveries are about 89-90 percent.

Chlorides are removed from flotation concentrates by thickening and washing them. The flotation then also undergoes more complicated processes until it is turned into a gold bar. The cash productions are very high at Kanowna; the most amount of money was made because of the US. This is some brief information about the Kanowna Belle mine.