When Oceana Gold needed an exceptionally tough loader to work the face at its Frasers Underground Mine, they turned to Goughs and a rugged Cat machine made across the ditch in Tasmania.
It’s probably the last accessible deposit of red scoria left in the country and, at five million cubic metres, there’s plenty of it. This resource would have also have to take the prize for being the most colourful stone in the country.
Of all the prejudices the quarry and mining industries have faced in recent times, we can now add the accusation that it could be bad for tourism.
Dredging was New Zealand’s greatest contribution to gold mining technology, and it continues today on the Grey River.
A sea-change in government attitudes to mining was signalled at the latest Aus-IMM conference.
Rightly or wrongly, quarries don’t enjoy the best of reputations as neighbours. Never-the-less, few quarry operators can honestly claim to have been shot at, kidnapped, or bombed. Jenny McMahon can.
With diesel representing over 80 percent of its energy costs and eight percent of the company’s total expenditure and fuel prices rising, Winstone Aggregates was looking for ways to drive down costs and improve its fleet fuel efficiency.
For the past five-and-a-half years, the mining industry has been quietly working with the Department of Conservation and other government authorities on a framework to work out the environmental impact on any project – particularly aquatic.
The Stockton open pit mining operation is not only the largest in New Zealand but it has a unique problem – coping with a whopping seven metres of rainfall most years and a neighbouring native reserve below its slopes.
A new era for minerals
