Posted on 01/13/2006 10:19:05 PM PST by Dundee
Modern gold rush tapping historic veins
VICTORIA is in the grip of a second gold rush, with the opening of new mines under its historic gold towns set to deliver a $700million-a-year boom.
Deep beneath Ballarat and Bendigo, workers are tapping into reefs of gold-bearing quartz that the miners of yesteryear were unable to recover and which have lain dormant for more than a century.
The Victorian Government predicts these new mines and a string of others across the historic goldfields will deliver a further 80 million ounces - or $56 billion worth - of gold, and turn the state into one of the world's key gold producers.
That is a similar amount to the haul dug up during the last gold rush, when the fields supplied 40per cent of the world's gold.
And in another throwback to bushranger days, the state is appointing a goldfields detective - a position partly funded by the mining companies - to ensure safe passage of the precious metal to Melbourne.
With the gold price soaring to more than $700 an ounce, at least eight mining projects are under way in Victoria, with several hundred thousand ounces already being dug out of the quartz reefs.
Shares in the companies operating most of the mines have risen rapidly, and in several cases their price has more than doubled in the past year, sometimes before production has even begun.
In a mine beneath Ballarat, the town where disgruntled miners staged the Eureka Stockade uprising in 1854, Ballarat Goldfields is about to start work on extracting an estimated 1.1-million-ounce gold deposit.
Also in Victoria's famed Golden Triangle, Bendigo Mining expects in June to start extracting an estimated 10-million-ounce reserve directly beneath the colonial streets of the 1850s town.
The Bendigo mine - which yielded a massive 22 million ounces in the previous gold rush - is predicted to be the third-biggest gold resource in Australia, after two West Australian projects, and the seventh-largest new gold resource in the world.
Miners in both mines are using modern techniques and equipment to go beneath the old workings, which petered out around 700m, and extract what their forebears left behind.
Bendigo Mining's share price has gone from 80c in January last year to $1.75 yesterday, while Ballarat Goldfields has climbed from 15c to 41c in the same period.
State Energy Minister Theo Theophanous, who has been spruiking Victoria's gold boom to investors and supplying geological data to encourage new miners, expects the modern rush to generate thousands of jobs.
"Victoria's second gold rush promises to be an exciting time for our state. We are again emerging as a major gold producer," he said.
"Just like the gold rush in the 1850s, we expect a boost in jobs and economic activity from this massive growth in the gold mining industry."
With mines in South Africa close to the end of their lives, Victoria's importance in the gold market is set to increase if the results match the predictions made by the Government and the mining companies.
The companies have had to battle skills shortages, forcing them to recruit foreign personnel from the African goldfields and elsewhere. But the unique location of Victoria's goldfields, in picturesque historic towns less than two hours' drive from Melbourne, has proved an asset for luring and retaining staff.
Residents in several towns have criticised the mines for endangering the environment and creating an eyesore, but there is also strong community support for the wealth and employment they have brought to the old goldfields.
Mines at Stawell and Fosterville in central Victoria have delivered large amounts of gold in recent years and have been given a new lease of life by the rising gold price.
New mines are being investigated in the goldfields town of Maldon and in remote country in the Victorian Alps northeast of Melbourne.
Leviathan Resources, which operates the Stawell mine , expects it to have yielded 115,000 ounces over the year. Perseverance's Fosterville mine has produced more than 30,000 ounces since it poured its first ingot in May.
The Empire Mine is the site of the oldest, largest, and richest gold mine in California. From 1850 to its closing in 1956, it produced 5.8 million ounces of gold.This 5.8 million ounces of gold would fill a box 7 feet on each side. It is estimated that this represented only 20% of the available gold...80% remains. The Park contains many of the original mine buildings, the owners cottage and the restored gardens and grounds as well as the entrance to 367 miles (the equivalent of a round trip from Grass Valley to San Jose) of abandoned and flooded shafts and tunnels. The park consists of 845 acres of forested back country and 12 miles of trails for hikers, bikers and horseback riders.
Ah, Ballarat. I visited it about five years ago. Nice little historic colonial town. My most memorable moment was at the dry goods store that advertised: "Avoid poverty: buy here" in the window.
Alaska is being mined by foreigners for reasons of
taxes I presume. The huge Pogo mine is owned by
Canadians.
Wow! Thanks.
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