OceanaGold cleared to return to mine
OceanaGold Corp has clearance from WorkSafe NZ to mine the southwest corner of its opencast gold mine in North Otago while continuing to monitor 45 million tonnes of rock that slipped 200 metres.
The pit wall failed on April 19 after heavy rain and followed a slip which moved about 50m a year earlier.
No one was injured in the April slip but a helicopter was needed to evacuate miners from the underground mine nearby.
BusinessDesk understands the company had invested $1 million in a radar system to monitor the eastern face of the pit but it was the western face that failed.
The alert of the potential disaster was actually raised by a worker, who spotted a crack in the road on his way to the underground mine.
The decision was made to pull out workers near the surface of the underground mine while workers further down waited as the crack in the road widened.
WorkSafe NZ put a prohibition order on the opencast mine after the slip.
The company has said gold production has continued from the opencast mine but this has been the processing of stockpiled ore.
No new ore has been mined from the opencast pit since the slip.
OceanaGold now initially wants to mine the southwest corner of the pit, while it evaluates potential for mining in the new pit landscape, particularly near one of the portals of the Frasers Underground Mine.
WorkSafe NZ lifted a prohibition on the southwest corner of the mine last week but mining of this area will only take six months.
It will take a month to put a road in and three months to mine but because there is a lot of overburden to be removed the ore mined is only likely to keep the gold production facility busy for a month.
