The Lawlers Gold Mine is a gold mine located 23 km south west of Leinster, Western Australia, owned by Gold Fields. Gold Fields purchased the mine in late 2013 and combined it with its nearby

Agnew Gold Mine The Agnew Gold Mine, formerly the Emu Mine, is a gold mine located west of Agnew, Western Australia. It is owned by the South African mining company Gold Fields. As of 2022, it is one of four mines the company operates in Australia, the others ...

. The process plant of the mine was subsequently sold and dismantled while no mining was carried out at Lawlers. It was formerly operated by

Barrick Gold Barrick Gold Corporation is a mining company that produces gold and copper with 16 operating sites in 13 countries. It is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It has mining operations in Argentina, Canada, Chile, Côte d'Ivoire, Democrati ...

and part of its Yilgarn South operation, which consisted of Lawlers, the Darlot-Centenary Gold Mine and the Granny Smith Gold Mine. The mine is located in the

Norseman The Norsemen (or Norse people) were a North Germanic ethnolinguistic group of the Early Middle Ages, during which they spoke the Old Norse language. The language belongs to the North Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages and is the pre ...

- Wiluna

greenstone belt Greenstone belts are zones of variably metamorphosed mafic to ultramafic volcanic sequences with associated sedimentary rocks that occur within Archaean and Proterozoic cratons between granite and gneiss bodies. The name comes from the green ...

.Australia Pacific
Barrick website, accessed: 1 January 2010

History

Gold was first discovered in the region in 1892 and the town side of Lawlers, named after Patrick Lawler who found the first gold in a nearby creek, was established. Of the original town of Lawlers, only the old police station is still standing. The site, was originally owned by

Plutonic Resources Intrusive rock is formed when magma penetrates existing rock, crystallizes, and solidifies underground to form '' intrusions'', such as batholiths, dikes, sills, laccoliths, and volcanic necks.Intrusive RocksIntrusive rocks accessdate: March ...

, a major Australian gold mining and exploration company.

Homestake Mining Company Homestake Mining Company was one of the largest gold mining businesses in the United States and the owner of the Homestake Mine in Lead, South Dakota. Founded in 1877, it was acquired by Barrick Gold in December 2001. Homestake was the longest-l ...

purchased Plutonic in April 1998 for more than $1.0 billion, and, in turn, Homestake was acquired by Barrick Gold at the end of 2001. Ore at Lawlers is mined in an underground operation. In June 2009, Lawlers has been certified as fully compliant with the

International Cyanide Management Code The International Cyanide Management Code for the Manufacture, Transport and Use of Cyanide in the Production of Gold, commonly referred to as the Cyanide Code, is a voluntary program designed to assist the global gold and silver mining industries ...

. In October 2013, Barrick finalised the sale of their Australian Yilgarn South mines, consisting of the Lawlers, Granny Smith and Darlot mines, to Goldfields. Barrick sold the mines as it considered them high-cost and required cash to compensate for the rising cost of its Pascua-Lama gold project. The three mines accounted for six percent of Barrick's annual gold output at the time. Goldfields purchased the mines for US$300 million, half of which had to be paid in cash while the other half could be issued in shares. Gold Fields subsequently merged the operations with the nearby

, closing the Lawlers processing plant and processing the ore mined at Lawlers at the Agnew plant. The plant was placed in care and maintenance and purchased by Kin Mining for A$2.5 million in June 2017. Kin relocated the movable assets of the plant 160km north to the

Cardinia Gold Mine Cardinia may refer to: * Cardinia, Victoria, Australia * Shire of Cardinia, Victoria, Australia * Cardinia Creek, Australia ** Cardinia Reservoir ** Cardinia Dam Power Station * Cardinia Transit Cardinia Transit was a bus and coach operator in ...

it was in the process of developing. Subsequently, ownership of the site and remaining plant components was returned to Gold Fields in 2020. From its opening in 1894 to its closure in 2013, the mine had produced 2.27 million ounces of gold at an average grade of 4.1 grams of gold per tonne.

Production

Annual production of the mine:

Lawlers

Production of the mine as a stand-alone operation:''The Australian Mines Handbook: 2003-2004 Edition'', page 10''The Australian Mines Handbook: 2003-2004 Edition'', page 1052004 Fourth Quarter Report
accessed: 1 January 2010Fourth Quarter & Year-End Mine Statistics 2006
accessed: 1 January 2010Fourth Quarter & Year-End Mine Statistics 2007
accessed: 1 January 2010

Yilgarn South

Production figures for the Yilgarn South operation, consisting of Darlot, Granny Smith and Lawlers:Fourth Quarter & Year-End Mine Statistics 2008
accessed: 1 January 2010

References

Bibliography

External links

*
MINEDEX website: Lawlers Gold
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 ...

{{Barrick Gold Gold mines in Western Australia Surface mines in Australia Underground mines in Australia Shire of Leonora Barrick Gold