One of Victoria’s most productive gold mines, Fosterville Gold Mine near Bendigo, has reached a major milestone by extracting its millionth ounce of gold from the current operation.
Minister for Energy and Resources Lily D’Ambrosio today joined the mine’s operator, Newmarket Gold Inc, to unveil a plaque on site to celebrate the achievement.
At today’s prices, a million ounces of gold is worth approximately $1.6 billion.
Fosterville Gold Mine employs 400 people and boosts the local economy by $90 million a year through wages and sourcing goods and services regionally.
The Fosterville mining operation is also a world-leader in adopting new technology to reduce emissions and energy use in the extraction process.
It is one of only 10 plants around the world to implement the innovative BIOX technology, which is a bacterial oxidation process that liberates gold from certain types of ore, with reduced air emissions and energy requirements compared to conventional processing.
Fosterville Gold Mine is one of four commercial-scale gold mines in Victoria, which produced about 245,000 ounces in 2015.
Gold mining has the potential for a bright future in Victoria. Geological estimates suggest there may be as much as 15 to 70 million ounces of undiscovered gold in northern regions of Victoria.
Victoria is also the biggest exporter of mining equipment, technology and services in Australia - a sector worth $17 billion to the state’s economy in 2012.
Quotes attributable to Minister for Energy and Resources Lily D’Ambrosio
“I congratulate everyone involved in Fosterville Gold Mine reaching this historic milestone of producing one million ounces of gold.”
“Mining makes a significant contribution to Victoria’s economy, particularly in regional areas, through local jobs and the flow-on effects of sourcing local goods and services.”
Reviewed 19 August 2020