Telfer is a minesite and

company town A company town is a place where all or most of the stores and housing in the town are owned by the same company that is also the main employer. Company towns are often planned with a suite of amenities such as stores, houses of worship, schoo ...

in the

Pilbara The Pilbara () is a large, dry, sparsely populated regions of Western Australia, region in the north of Western Australia. It is known for its Indigenous Australians, Aboriginal people; wealth disparity; its ancient landscapes; the prevailing r ...

region of

Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...

, within the

Great Sandy Desert The Great Sandy Desert is an interim Australian bioregion,IBRA Version 6.1
data

. It is the state's most isolated town and is located north-east of the state capital

Perth Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...

. The gold, copper, and silver mine is one of the largest gold mines in Australia.

History

Newmont Mining first made a claim to the deposit in 1972;''The Australian Mines Handbook: 2003-2004 Edition'', page 128, accessed: 27 January 2010 however, this is disputed by

Jean-Paul Turcaud Jean-Paul Turcaud ( 1940–2020) was a French mining pioneer, and one of many claimants to the discovery of the Telfer Mine in Western Australia, for a time Australia's largest gold mine. The discovery of this prospect was attributed by Newmont M ...

to this date.The Golden Riddle: Finder's Keepers?

ABC Radio National ABC Radio National, more commonly known as Radio National or simply RN, is an Australian nationwide public service radio network run by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). From 1947 until 1985, the network was known as ABC Radio 2. ...

, produced by Bronwyn Adcock, broadcast: 6 June 1999, accessed: 27 January 2010 A company town to support the mine was built by Newmont in 1976 and named after Telfer, former Western Australian Under Secretary for Mines. The town grew to a peak of almost 1,000 inhabitants in the early 1990s, with services such as a supermarket, a police station, a bank, a community hall, a library and a number of sporting facilities being available.''Mining towns of Western Australia'', page: 33-34 Telfer Plaque

The mine opened in 1977 as a joint venture between

BHP BHP Group Limited, founded as the Broken Hill Proprietary Company, is an Australian multinational mining and metals corporation. BHP was established in August 1885 and is headquartered in Melbourne, Victoria. As of 2024, BHP was the world� ...

and Newmont Mining. In 1990, a merger between Newmont Australia Limited and BHP Gold Limited resulted in the creation of

Newcrest Mining Newcrest Mining Limited is an Australian-based corporation which engages in the exploration, development, mining and sale of gold and the froth flotation product, gold-copper concentrate. It is Australia's leading gold mining company and its o ...

, with ownership of the Telfer mine lying with Newcrest.History of NCM
Newcrest website, accessed: 27 January 2010 Telfer's demographic characteristics were typical of a northern Western Australian mining town in the time period. It had a male to female ratio of 2.4 to 1 and almost 40 percent of its population was born overseas. Half its population was below the age of 35 and the town experienced an annual population turnover of almost 20 percent. In 1996, the town suffered from the decision to move the Telfer mine from residential to a

fly-in fly-out Fly-in fly-out is a method of employing people in remote areas by flying them temporarily to the work site instead of relocating employees and their families permanently. It is often abbreviated to FIFO when referring to employment status. This i ...

workforce. Many of the commercial services were withdrawn; only the recreational facilities were maintained. The existing housing was now used for the accommodation of the mine's mobile work force. One of the main reasons for the town's closure was that fly-in fly-out rosters gave the mine access to a larger skilled work force and to people that would otherwise have been unwilling to relocate to a remote location like Telfer.

Open-cut mining Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique that extracts rock or minerals from the earth. Open-pit mines are used when deposits of commercially useful ore or ro ...

was suspended in August 2000 due to high operating costs. High production costs were primarily caused by the presence of cyanide soluble copper in the open pit ore. In 2002, Newcrest Mining announced a new redevelopment project worth $1 billion, after discovering new mineral areas and a reserve base of some of gold and of copper. The mine reopened in November 2004, after commissioning of the processing plant and, initially as an open cut mine, from March 2006 also with an underground operation.Operations - Telfer
Newcrest website, accessed: 27 January 2010 In July 2018, a woman on her lunch break at the Telfer Mine was attacked by a dingo. The injuries required surgery. On 4 December 2024, Greatland Gold acquired a 100% stake in the mine.

Climate

Telfer has a

hot arid climate The desert climate or arid climate (in the Köppen climate classification ''BWh'' and ''BWk'') is a dry climate sub-type in which there is a severe excess of evaporation over precipitation. The typically bald, rocky, or sandy surfaces in desert ...

(

Köppen Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Bernd Köppen (1951–2014), German pianist and composer * Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan * Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author ...

''BWh'') with sweltering summers and very warm winters. Summer highs average at and winter highs at . These very high temperatures mean that the climate is classed as arid despite receiving around of rainfall per year. Telfer's location near the hot

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia (continent), ...

leaves the community vulnerable to

tropical cyclone A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system with a low-pressure area, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Depending on its locat ...

s. For example,

Cyclone Graham Cyclone Graham of the 2002–03 Australian region cyclone season was a weak tropical storm that affected Australia during late February and early March 2003. Graham originated from an area of convection that emerged onto water after sitting over ...

affected the area in early 2003, delivering of rain. Severe Tropical

Cyclone Laurence Severe Tropical Cyclone Laurence of December 2009 was the first Category 5 tropical cyclone to make landfall in Australia since Cyclone George in 2007. Laurence was the first named system, and first system overall to form during the 2009–10 A ...

also passed over the mine site in December 2009.

History

Climate

References

Further reading