Macraes Mine in

East Otago East Otago is the name given to that part of Otago, in the South Island of New Zealand that lies directly to the north of Dunedin. To the south, its limit is approximately the rough hill pass of the Kilmog, 25 kilometres north of Dunedin city ce ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

's largest gold mine, and consists of a large scale opencast mine opened in 1990, and a newer underground mine, opened in 2008.Macraes Mine
at Oceana Gold It is situated close to the settlement of

Macraes Flat Macraes, formerly known as Macraes Flat, and known in Māori as Ōtī,Place names'' on Kāti Huirapa Runaka ki Puketeraki website, viewed 2012-01-04 is a town in the Waitaki District in Otago, New Zealand. It is known as a mining town, with a l ...

and is owned by

OceanaGold OceanaGold Corporation (OceanaGold) is a multinational, mid-tier gold mining company with significant global operating, development and exploration experience. OceanaGold’s operating assets are located in the Philippines, New Zealand and the U ...

Corporation. Gold production averaged 193,000

Troy ounce Troy weight is a system of units of mass that originated in 15th-century England, and is primarily used in the precious metals industry. The troy weight units are the grain, the pennyweight (24 grains), the troy ounce (20 pennyweights), and the ...

s/year for 2008 through 2010. Ore grades have been declining, to 1.26 grams/tonne in 2010, but recoveries have improved slightly to 81% of the gold contained in the ore, in 2010. From 1990 through 2014, gold production totaled about 4 million ounces. The mine's 5 millionth ounce was poured in July 2019. The company claims a gold reserve of 1.53 MM troy oz Au plus a larger subeconomic gold resource; and expects the mine to operate at least through 2021. As of July 2019, over 5 million ounces of gold have been extracted. The gold bearing rocks were formed by the

orogenic Orogeny is a mountain building process. An orogeny is an event that takes place at a convergent boundary, convergent plate margin when plate motion compresses the margin. An ''orogenic belt'' or ''orogen'' develops as the compressed plate crumpl ...

processes that created the Otago Schist belt.

References

External links

Macraes Mine
at Oceana Gold {{NewZealand-struct-stub Buildings and structures in Otago Gold mines in New Zealand Open-pit mines Surface mines in New Zealand