paddington gold operation centre
The Paddington mining and exploration tenement package covers an area of 1,056km² within the world-class Kalgoorlie gold province. It is centered around the Paddington Mill which is located 35km North-West of Kalgoorlie, Western Australia.
Location:
35km North-West of the City of Kalgoorlie-Boulders
Mining Operations:
Golden Cities Operations, Carbine-Zuleika Operations, Mt Jewell Operations, Mt Pleasant Operations, Ora Banda Operations
2024 Gold Production:
Operation Commencement Date:
1985
Mineral Resource：
4,871 Koz @ 31 December 2023
Ore Reserve:
1,304 Koz @ 31 December 2023
Mining Operations
Golden Cities Operations
The Golden Cities Open pit is located within the Paddington mining and exploration tenement package. There are 2 open pits that are currently operating, Federal Open pit and Havana Open Pit. It is 100% owned and operated by Norton Gold Fields Limited and is centred around the Paddington Mill, located 35km North-West of Kalgoorlie, Western Australia.
Geology
The Golden Cities mining lease includes five deposits: Havana, Federal, Jakarta, Mt Jewell, and Mulgarrie. Gold mineralization in this area is linked to Archean orogenic tectonic and metamorphic events, specifically regional D2–D3. All deposits are part of the Norseman-Wiluna greenstone belt, characterized as ductile shear zone-type gold deposits, with gold sourced from granitoid complexes and deep hydrothermal activity.
Havana, Federal, and Jakarta are located within the Kalgoorlie Terrane’s Boorara Domain greenstone belt, inside the Scotia-Kanowna granite/granodiorite dome. Gold is primarily found at intersections of northeast to north-northeast trending faults with northwest-trending faults, associated with demagnetization of the dome’s granite.
The Mulgarrie deposit is on the eastern limb of the Scotia-Kanowna batholith anticline. Its structural trend is north-northwest to south-southeast, aligned with the greenstone stratigraphy of the Boorara Domain. Mineralization is mainly controlled by a northeast-dipping thrust fault along the contact zone of komatiite/high-Mg basalt within brittle shear zones in carbonate-altered lenses, with low greenschist facies metamorphism.
Federal Operation
The Federal deposit is located 12km north-east of the Paddington mill, situated within the Golden Cities camp area which includes the previously mined Havana deposit.
The Federal Operation is an Owner Operated Operation using optimised scheduling techniques and modern truck and shovel fleets to mine over 1Mtpa of ore.
The Federal project is a part of the Paddington Gold Operations Centre, in late 2024 the Federal Open Pit Operation has concluded, and have received all relevant approval for the Federal Underground Operation which would be commencing in 2025.
Havana Open Pit
The Havana deposit is located 12km north-east of the Paddington mill, situated within the Golden Cities camp area.
The Havana Operation is a 100% Owner Operated Operation using optimised scheduling techniques and modern truck and shovel fleets to mine over 0.1Mtpa of ore.
The Federal project commenced in mid-2024 and currently has a planned life of mine of 4.5 years with the potential of prospects to extend the life of mine as well as exploring underground opportunities.
Carbine-Zuleika Operations
The Carbine-Zuleika mining lease is located 40km West of Paddington Processing Plant, it includes the following deposits: Bullant Underground, Bullant South, Bullant West, Jasmine, Wattlebird, Matt’s Dam, Matt’s Dam South, Porphyry, Porphyry West, and Breakaway Dam.
The Carbine-Zuleika Operation currently comprises five projects, with retained resources of 28.44 tonnes and reserves of 2.38 tonnes.
The Bullant underground project was acquired from KMC during 2013, in 2023 it has an annual ore production of over 150,000 tonnes, producing 22,000 ounces of gold.
Geology
The Carbine-Zuleika Operation is located within the northwest-trending Coolgardie-Carbine Archean greenstone belt. The primary structure in this area is a gently dipping, northwest-trending syncline composed mainly of sedimentary rocks, felsic volcanic rocks, and minor mafic/ultramafic intrusions from the Black Flag Group. Gold mineralization typically occurs along geological contact zones, particularly between mafic and ultramafic units.
Bullant is situated along the Zuleika Shear Zone, a 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.
Bullant Underground
The Bullant Operation is an owner operated underground mine. Our In-House Production and Engineering Teams collaborate to extract over 0.27 Mtpa of Ore from the Bullant Deposit using sub level stoping techniques.
Mt Pleasant Operations
The Mt Pleasant Mining Lease is located 12km South-West of the Paddington Processing Plant. The Mt Pleasant mining lease consists of 21 deposits.
The Mt Pleasant Operation currently comprises 17 projects, with retained resources of 74.08 tonnes and reserves of 2.72 tonnes.
The Tuart underground project in 2024, Tuart Underground achieved annual ore production of over 150,000 tonnes, producing over 55,000 ounces of gold.
Geology
The Mt Pleasant Projects area is located within the Ora Banda region of the Archean Kalgoorlie Terrane, bounded by the Zuleika Shear Zone to the west and the Abattoir Shear Zone to the east.
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.
Tuart Underground
Each year, Our Contractor Production Team and both In-House and external Engineering Teams collaborate to extract over 0.6 Mtpa of Ore from the Tuart Deposit using sub level stoping techniques.
Ora Banda Operations
The Ora Banda Mining Tenement is located 28km North-West of the Paddington Processing Plant. The Ora Banda mining Tenement includes the Enterprise, Enterprise West, Sandalwood, Sleeping Beauty, Tom Allen, and Gimlet South deposits. With Enterprise having the most resources in the region.
The Ora Banda mining lease currently includes five projects, with total resources of 22.2 tonnes and reserves of 2.86 tonnes.
Geology
The greenstone sequence in the Ora Banda mining area consists of thick ultramafic and mafic volcanic rocks, overlain by intermediate to felsic volcaniclastic rocks and sediments.
Geological control on the Enterprise deposit comprises the intersection of an east-west trending structural corridor with a stratigraphically favourable south-west dipping dolerite sequence.
Enterprise Underground
Each year, our Contractor Production Team and both In-House and external Engineering Teams collaborate to extract over 0.65 Mtpa of Ore from the Enterprise Deposit using long hole sublevel stoping techniques.
Processing Plant
Paddington Mill
The Paddington Mill, located 35km north of Kalgoorlie, remains the central hub for Norton’s gold processing operations in the Goldfields region.
Since acquiring the Paddington Operations in 2007, Norton has operated the mill at high levels of availability and utilisation. This consistently high level of performance is a testament to the planning, dedication and innovation of our metallurgical, processing and maintenance teams.
For the CY2024 the Paddington Mill delivered above nameplate annual throughput of 3.76 million tonnes of ore at an average throughput rate of 479 tph. Above budget mill utilisation of 93.5% was achieved for the year. Mill feed ore head grade was 1.85g/t of gold from a mixture of open cut and underground sources. Gold recovery was 92.23%.
Gold produced for the 2024 calendar year was 210,000 ounces, well above the 2024 production forecast.
Operations & Processing
The 3.8Mtpa plant is based on conventional carbon-in-pulp technology which is an efficient and low cost operation. It comprises a gyratory crusher, a ball and SAG mill grinding circuit with two pebble crushers, gravity recovery and cyanide leaching. In the leaching circuit, gold is extracted from slurry onto activated carbon before pumping the carbon to an elution column to extract gold into solution. The gold-bearing solution is then passed through a series of electro-winning cells that deposit the gold onto stainless steel cathodes. The cathodes are rinsed to yield a gold sludge that is dried and then smelted into gold doré bullion bars. The bullion is sent to the smelter for refining into gold bars.