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Australia

Norton Operation

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Overview

Mine TypeOpen Pit & Underground
StatusActive
Commodities
  • Gold
Mining Method
  • Truck & Shovel / Loader
  • Avoca
  • Longhole stoping
Backfill type ... Lock
Production Start... Lock
Mine Life... Lock
SnapshotNorton Operation comprises Paddington mining operation and Binduli North gold mine heap leach project.

Binduli North gold mine heap leach project completed construction and commenced production in September 2022.
Related Asset

Owners

SourceSource
CompanyInterestOwnership
Norton Gold Fields Ltd. (operator) 100 % Direct
Zijin Mining Group Co., Ltd 100 % Indirect
The Paddington is 100% owned and operated by Norton Gold Fields Limited.

Norton Gold Fields Pty Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Zijin Mining Group.

Contractors

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Deposit type

  • Porphyry
  • Breccia pipe / Stockwork
  • Vein / narrow vein

Summary:

Paddington Gold Operations comprises of the following key deposits: Enterprise, Janet Ivy, Bullant, Homestead, Tuart and Federal.

Federal open cut and underground.
The Federal deposit is located 12 km northeast of the Paddington Mill, situated within the Golden Cities camp area.

Mineralisation is hosted by granitoid lithologies and is controlled by a northwest trending fault zone. Gold mineralisation is associated with pyritic vein quartz, with vein density the dominant control on gold grade. Several plunging high-grade lodes within the broader lower grade mineralised envelope are interpreted, and future work will review the potential to extend these lodes.

Enterprise open pit and underground.
The Enterprise deposit is hosted by units of the Enterprise dolerite sill and comprises a breccia cap with underlying quartz stock work. Eight layers have been identified within the sill and identified as Unit 1 to Unit 8 (from depth to surface).

Gold mineralisation is characterised by multiple fault orientations, with the major ore envelope controlled by the intersection of a series of steep trending faults. High-grade gold zones are concentrated in steeply plunging linear zones that coincide with these brittle- ductile faults, and large areas of relatively lower grade mineralisation fill the gaps between the faults.

Homestead Underground.
The Homestead orebody comprises several mineralised high-grade veins (VN01, VN02 and VN03), within the north trending, steep, west- dipping Homestead shear zone. A series of oblique east-west to northwest trending veins, the Phantom and small 140 veins respectively, occur immediately east of the Homestead shear zone. At the northern limit of VN01, the Homestead shear zone is cut by a northeast trending fault structure which laterally offsets the main mineralised zone some 40 m to the west of VN01, which is referred to as VN03.

Two areas have been drill tested during the period, namely depth extensions of the Black Flag West Vein and a newly defined mineralised vein now called the Henning Vein.

The Henning Lode or Vein is a new discovery located in the footwall of the northwest trending, northeast dipping Black Flag West Vein. Orientation of the new vein is interpreted to be north-south trending and steep east dipping. The Henning Vein is characterised by massive to laminated vein quartz with a pyrite/pyrrhotite/galena/sphalerite sulphide assemblage, similar to other mineralised veins in the area. The vein averages approximately 1 m to 2 m in true width based on current data. Mineralisation has been intersected over a strike extent of 50 m to 100 m, and a dip extent of up to 150 m.

Tuart Open Cut and Underground Prospect.
The Tuart Prospect is located within the Mt Pleasant mine camp area, adjacent to the currently operating Homestead underground mine and the previously mined Green Gum open cut mine.

The Tuart deposit comprises a series of high grade quartz-carbonate-sulphide brecciated or laminated veins hosted within mafic volcanics. Supergene oxide mineralisation is developed in the regolith immediately above and/or adjacent to the primary veins. Mineralisation covers a broad area located to the northwest of the Homestead underground mine, and immediately west of the historically mined Quarters open pit and underground mine.

Janet Ivy.
The Janet Ivy porphyry consists of anhedral quartz and sub-euhedral feldspar phenocrysts within a fine-grained to aphanitic ground mass. Two distinct alteration suites are present within the porphyry. The central potassic alteration suite consists of pervasive and halo-bound biotite, magnetite and hematite. The sodic alteration suite is present within the alteration halos of quartz veins and within shear zones. This is characterised by a pale-pink (hematite still present) bleached appearance and consists of albite, calcite, ankerite, rutile, pyrite and galena. Gold mineralisation within the Janet Ivy porphyry is present as both discrete high-grade and broad low-grade zones. High-grade mineralisation, which can include visible gold, is confined to narrow extensional and stringer quartz veins with sodic alteration halos. Broad, lowgrade mineralisation is pervasive throughout the potassic alteration zones.

Gold mineralisation within the project area is dominated by the Janet Ivy Porphyry. This unit is a massive, porphyritic, plagioclase-quartz-biotite intrusive of trondhjemite or rhyodacite composition that has undergone variable and staged metasomatic and hydrothermal alteration characterised by magnetite, haematite, albite, sericite, carbonate and pyrite assemblages. The Janet Ivy porphyry is approximately 2.5 kilometres long, up to 150 metres wide and has an unknown depth extent. Within this unit gold distribution is controlled by quartz-pyrite veining and associated alteration selvedges emplaced along brittle fractures or tension cracks created by probable shearing along the porphyry margins. This mineralisation style is also evident within the Eastern Porphyry.

Bullant underground.
The Bullant Project is located 40 km west of the Paddington Mill and was acquired from KMC during 2013. The underground mine is situated along the Zuleika Shear Zone, a highly prospective regional north-northwest trending structure. The Shear Zone is a broad ductile to brittle structural corridor contained within a mafic unit in the mine area. The Shear Zone dips sub-vertically to steep east dipping. Mineralisation occurs in up to four lodes (labelled the Main, East, West and Cross lodes) and is associated with biotitesilica-pyrite altered basalt and minor local quartz veining. Both the Main and East lodes remain open at depth and in various other positions around previously mined areas.

Reserves

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Mining Methods

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Comminution

Crushers and Mills

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Processing

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Production

CommodityUnits20242023202220212020201920182017
Gold koz  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe185 137 204 
All production numbers are expressed as metal in doré. ^ Guidance / Forecast.

Operational metrics

Metrics20212019201820172015
Daily mining capacity  ....  Subscribe
Daily processing rate  ....  Subscribe
Annual processing capacity  ....  Subscribe3.73 Mt3.73 Mt3.7 Mt
Tonnes processed  ....  Subscribe3,640,163 t

Production Costs

Commodity production costs have not been reported.

Financials

Units202320222021202020192018
Operating Income M RMB  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe 1,762   1,158  
After-tax Income M RMB  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe 316.8   14.5  

Heavy Mobile Equipment

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Personnel

Mine Management

Job TitleNameProfileRef. Date
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required Jun 3, 2024
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required Jun 3, 2024
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required Jun 3, 2024
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EmployeesYear
...... Subscription required 2020

Aerial view:

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