The Burbanks Gold Mine is a

gold mine Gold Mine may refer to: *Gold Mine (board game) *Gold Mine (Long Beach), an arena *"Gold Mine", a song by Joyner Lucas from the 2020 album '' ADHD'' See also * ''Gold'' (1974 film), based on the novel ''Gold Mine'' by Wilbur Smith *Gold mining ...

located 9 km south east of

Coolgardie, Western Australia Coolgardie is a small town in Western Australia, east of the state capital, Perth. It has a population of approximately 850 people. Although Coolgardie is now known to most Western Australians as a tourist town and a mining ghost town, it wa ...

. The process plant of the mine is owned by Mineral Ventures while the mine is owned by Greenstone Resources.

History

The Burbanks deposit historically produced over 400,000 ounces of gold from both

underground Underground most commonly refers to: * Subterranea (geography), the regions beneath the surface of the Earth Underground may also refer to: Places * The Underground (Boston), a music club in the Allston neighborhood of Boston * The Underground (S ...

and

open pit Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique of extracting rock or minerals from the earth from an open-air pit, sometimes known as a borrow. This form of mining ...

mining. Small scale mining still continued in the late 1990s.''The Australian Mines Handbook: 2003-2004 Edition'', page: 75 From 1887 to 1914, the mine was the highest grade gold mine in Western Australia with 22.7 grams of gold per tonne. It was mined by

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 ...

in the early 1950s but closed down in 1991.Barra bonanza gold find could be largest

The Sydney Morning Herald ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily compact newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and owned by Nine. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper ...

, published: 21 December 2007, accessed: 6 September 2009 In this production period, the mine produced 324,479 ounces of gold at an average grade of 22.7 g/t.

Mine

Barra acquired the mine in September 2000 from WMC and mined the deposit in an underground operation, developing a decline from the already existing Lady Robinson pit from July 2006. After mining 24,900 ounces of gold, Barra stopped the operation in August 2007, allowing it to pursue an exploration campaign. In late 2007, Barra believed to have made one of the most spectacular gold discoveries in Australian resources history, hitting an intersection yielding a very high 10,300 grams of gold per tonne, at 350 metres below surface, in a vicinity where no drilling had been carried out before. In June 2009, Burbanks recommenced gold production in a mining and profit-share arrangement between Barra and Mulgabbie Mining Pty Ltd. In this production period, the mine produced 420,000 ounces of gold. Ownership of the mine changed hands numerous times in the following years, with Barra selling the mine to Kidman Resources in 2015 before buying it back again in 2017. At one point, in between, the mine was also owned by the Resources and Energy Group. Under Kidman's ownership the mine briefly reopened in 2015 but ceased production again the following year. With the re-purchase of Burbanks, Barra also acquired the Birthday Gift underground mine at Burbanks, which Barra had sold in August 2013 to Blue Tiger Mines for A$2 million in cash and a A$25 royalty for every ounce of gold mined, while retaining the mining and exploration rights for the reminder of the lease. Barra Resources changed its name to Greenstone Resources in November 2021 and mining at Burbanks resumed in December 2021, with ore processed at the Greenfields Mill, north-east of Coolgardie.

Process plant

The process plant was owned by Ramelius Resources from 2006, having purchased it from Coolgardie Custom Milling for A$2.8 million, for the purpose of utilising it to process ore from its

Wattle Dam Gold Mine The Wattle Dam Gold Mine is a gold mine located 25 km south west of Kambalda, Western Australia and is owned by Maximus Resources. It is formerly owned by Ramelius Resources. Ramelius, listed at the Australian Securities Exchange since 2 ...

. The plant 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 ...

once more in 2014 and, in August 2016, Maximus Resources purchased the plant from Ramelius Resources for A$2.5 million. Maximus planned to use it as a potential treatment plant for its Spargoville gold project, located 60km from Burbanks but was also open to treat ore from third-parties during this time. Maximus Resources, in turn, sold the process plant for A$5.2 million to Mineral Ventures in September 2019, after an earlier attempt to sell it to SMS Innovation, a subsidiary of Adaman Resources, fell through. In the new agreement, Maximus retained the right to process 5,000 tonnes of ore per month for two years from January 2020. A short period of trial mining took place at the mine in 2021–22, producing 2,078 ounces of gold.

Production

Production of the mine:Barra Resources annual report 2007
accessed: 6 September 2009 * ¹ First quarter of 1999 only.

References

Bibliography

External links

MINEDEX website: Burbanks Mill / Maximus
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 ...

MINEDEX website: Burbanks / REG
Database of the Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety {{Gold Mines in Western Australia Gold mines in Western Australia Surface mines in Australia Underground mines in Australia Coolgardie, Western Australia