Oz Mining Article - GOLDEN FUTURE FOR PILBARA28 Oct 2020 07:58
Golden future for the Pilbara
October 22, 2020Features Salomae Haselgrove
Greatland Gold's Havieron project in the Pilbara.
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Western Australia’s Pilbara is one of Australia’s top mining regions, with numerous Tier 1 iron ore operations based in the area. Now companies like Greatland Gold, Kalamazoo Resources and Thor Mining are hoping to build a golden future in the region.
Hosting Australia’s three largest iron ore producers, BHP, Rio Tinto and Fortescue Metals Group, the Pilbara region is one that has already enjoyed the rewards of a successful mining boom on its doorstep.
Western Australia was voted as the world’s top mining jurisdiction in the Fraser Institute annual survey of mining company rankings in 2020, a ranking that has not gone unnoticed by exploration companies.
While the Pilbara has long been associated with iron ore, the region is also home to the Pilbara Goldfield, which could be the location of Australia’s next gold rush.
With the success of Newcrest Mining’s Telfer mine in the Great Sandy Desert within the East Pilbara, gold explorers are flocking to the area in an attempt to discover the next Telfer, due to the region’s prospective geographical features for gold and copper mineralisation.
Greatland Gold is one of these companies and it has the advantage of being teamed up with Newcrest in a farm-in joint venture to explore and develop the Havieron gold-copper project.
As chief executive officer Gervaise Heddle explains, the partnership with Newcrest, along with the prior success of mining within the Pilbara region sets Greatland Gold up well to take advantage of a Pilbara gold rush.
“The great advantage for Greatland Gold is we have our partnership with Newcrest and Newcrest has the most significant piece of infrastructure in the underexplored East Pilbara with the Telfer mine airport and accommodation,” Heddle tells Australian Mining.
The Telfer plant is located just 45 kilometres from Greatland Gold’s Havieron project, meaning ore can easily be transported and processed at Telfer.
“The benefit of that is we don’t need to build a new plant in that remote region, which is very expensive,” Heddle explains.
Newcrest brings more to the partnership than established infrastructure, with Greatland Gold able to use Newcrest’s expertise as a guide as it progresses Havieron.
“Newcrest brings a lot of other strengths to the table, including their expertise as one of the world’s leaders in bulk underground mining, sub-level caving,” Heddle says.
“Havieron will be an underground mine so this expertise will be very valuable for Greatland Gold.”
In addition to Havieron, Greatland Gold’s Paterson province comprises two more granted minin