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Paddington Gold (100%)                  

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Location:

Product:

Mining method:


Treatment rate:


Processing:

Began operation:

Production:

~ 40 kilometres north of Kalgoorlie, Western Australia.

Gold

Open cut mining: current
Underground mining: projected to start in the first half of CY 2009

Nominal: 3 Mt/a 
Actual: 3.3 Mt/a over FY 2008

Conventional carbon-in-pulp (CIP) circuit

1985

Current: 150koz pa 
Planned: 250koz pa

Paddington produces gold doré bars (~75% gold) for delivery to the refinery and sale into the bullion market.
Current production of >150 koz pa is expected to begin ramping-up to 250 koz pa around March 2009 as underground production starts.

Overview

Norton acquired the Paddington Gold Mine on 25 August 2007.

The initial aim was to re-establish a stable operating platform and produce 53,400 oz of gold for the 18 week period up to 31 December 2007. Actual gold produced was 63,020 oz.

Reserves and Resources

The geological database includes data from ~60,000 drill holes and appraisal work undertaken over more than 25 years covering 69 previously drilled deposits and more than 100 known ore bodies over 1,200 square kilometres in a 40-kilometre radius from the Paddington Plant.

Norton is reviewing this database. The initial focus on documentation detailing Resources and Reserves led to a re-statement of the Reserve/Resource position in January 2008. Subsequent work, including additional drilling, led to a further re-statement in April that identified Mineral Resources of 4.8M oz including Ore Reserves of 1.01M oz (as defined under the JORC code). Paddington’s remaining mine-life is now well in excess of 10 years.

We aim, within two years, to upgrade all remaining engineering and geological data to JORC standards. Work is being prioritised according to the mining schedule.

Processing

The Paddington Mill is based on conventional carbon in pulp (CIP) technology and is low cost due to its large size and high efficiency.

Facilities include a mill to crush the ore, a grinding circuit, gravity recovery and cyanide leaching. Gold is extracted from slurry in the leaching circuit and absorbed onto activated carbon. The carbon is pumped to an elution column where gold is washed into solution. The gold-bearing solution is then passed through a series of electro-winning cells that deposit the gold onto stainless steel cathodes. The cathodes are rinsed to yield a gold sludge that is dried then smelted into gold doré bars containing ~75% gold. The bars are sent to a refinery where impurities are stripped out to produce 99.99% gold bullion.

Production

Historical gold production is summarised below:


Ore treated (kt)
Grade (g/tonne)
Recovery
Cash cost (A$ per oz)
Gold produced (koz)

1997
3,028
1.7
89%
474
150
1998
3,155
2.2
93%
317
209
1999
2,438
2.2
94%
400
162
2000
1,619
2.7
94%
352
132
2001
2,689
1.8
95%
376
148
2002
3,192
2.3
95%
383
225
2003
3,128
3.2
94%
498
308
2004
3,029
2.6
94%
478
244
2005
2,834
2.6
94%
576
243
2006
3,001
2.9
94%
501
259
2007
3,011
2.2
94%
N/A
214
 
Mining during the first decade (1985 to 1994) was based on two major open pits - Paddington 1 and 2. In 1994, these were expanded and a new treatment plant was built with an annual capacity of 3.0M tonnes.

The original Paddington open cut was mined out in 2002. Exploration and acquisition activity provided new ore bodies that now form the pipeline of ore supply for the mine.

A merger with Delta Gold in 2001 provided a number of potential new sources of ore for the Paddington Mill including the Red Hill prospect (completed June 2007). Also acquired during this period were the Mt Pleasant and Ora Banda properties from the administrator of Centaur Mining Limited, and the Golden Cities project from AMX. These projects are now being developed by Norton.

Development


Preparatory work and a feasibility study are underway to develop an underground operation at the Mount Pleasant Camp 18 kilometres from the Paddington Mill. The camp comprises the Homestead Underground Project which is planned to come on stream around March 2009, and the Tuart, Marlock and Green Gums underground deposits which are planned to be developed in series following Homestead development. The Mount Pleasent Camp is expected to deliver up to 100,000 oz pa of gold for 10 years with production starting around March 2009.

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