The Beta Hunt Mine is a

nickel Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive but large pieces are slow to ...

and

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...

mine near

Kambalda Kambalda is a small mining town about from the mining city of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia, within the Goldfields. It is split into two townsites apart, Kambalda East and Kambalda West; and is located on the western edge of a giant salt ...

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

. It is owned and operated by Canadian company Karora Resources through a subsidiary named Salt Lake Mining Pty Ltd. The mining tenement is held by

Gold Fields Limited Gold Fields Limited (formerly The Gold Fields of South Africa) is one of the world's largest gold mining firms. Headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa, the company is listed on both the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) and the New York Sto ...

and leased to Salt Lake Mining. The mine is licensed to extract up to of water and discharge it into

Lake Lefroy Lake Lefroy is a large ephemeral salt lake in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excludin ...

to maintain access to the mineral resources.

History

The Beta Hunt Mine was originally a nickel mine, exploiting an ore body discovered in 1966. The mine opened in 1973 and produced 153,500 tonnes of nickel metal for

WMC Resources WMC Resources Limited was an Australian diversified mining company. History Western Mining Corporation (WMC) was formed in 1933, when William Robinson, the Australian-born London-based managing director of Broken Hill Associated Smelters, wa ...

by 1998. The mine was sold to Gold Fields Limited in 2001. Reliance Mining acquired the nickel rights in 2003 and was acquired by Consolidated Minerals in 2005. The mine was placed into

care and maintenance Care and maintenance is a term used in the mining industry to describe processes and conditions on a closed minesite where there is potential to recommence operations at a later date. During a care and maintenance phase, production is stopped but t ...

in 2008. It was acquired by Salt Lake Mining in 2013 after that company also secured gold mining rights. It resumed producing nickel in 2014 and started producing gold in November 2015. In September 2018, a large deposit of gold-bearing

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical form ...

rock was discovered in the mine during routine blasting, underground. Nickel production is scheduled to resume at the mine from 2022, with Karora Resources aiming to produce up to 550 tonnes of nickel during the year. Nickel had last been produced at the mine in 2018, when 300 tonnes were mined. No nickel production was announced for 2022, also some mining for the commodity had taken place, but a guidance for 2023 for an intended nickel production of between 450 and 550 tonnes was announced in March 2023.

Production

Recent annual production of the mine:

Gold

Nickel

References

External links

*
MINEDEX website: Kambalda Gold / RNC
Database of the

Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety The Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety is a department of the Government of Western Australia. The department was formed on 1 July 2017, out of the former Department of Mines and Petroleum and Department of Commerce. A restr ...

Nickel mines in Western Australia Gold mines in Western Australia Shire of Coolgardie Underground mines in Australia 1973 establishments in Australia {{WesternAustralia-geo-stub