Service: Production and grade-control drilling

The Tropicana Gold Mine project is located 330 km northeast of Kalgoorlie, Western Australia. Since 2002, it has been jointly owned by AngloGold Ashanti (70% – manager) and Independence Group (30%). The Tropicana tenements consist of 12,500 km2 of land. It is located at the junction of the Yilgarn Craton and the Fraser Range Mobile Belt.

The Tropicana deposit was discovered in 2005. The nearby Havana deposit was discovered in 2006. Mining commenced in July 2012 and first ore was sent to the crushing circuit in July 2013. The first gold was poured on 26 September 2013. The area has been seen as a new major Australian gold province, previously unexplored due to its remoteness, and dubbed the “Tropicana Gold Belt”.

At approx. 3.5 km long, 1.5 km wide and over 600 metres deep, the Superpit is one of Australia’s largest open cut gold mines. Ausdrill was awarded this drilling services contract in 1989 and has delivered over three decades of continuous operation.

In that time we have developed a genuine partnership with our client and a deep understanding of the site. The Ausdrill-designed Rock Commander (RC) 330 and RC 350 Longreach Drill – developed originally through tenure and experience at this very site – has transformed the safe and productive way our team works through the surface mining sequence. Designed around an excavator track base, these rigs enable greater reach and flexibility, providing a safe and highly efficient way to drill in a pit famous for large stopes and underground networks. At the height of the mining cycle 18 production and 3 RC rigs were achieving approximately 240,000 meters per month.