I support Matt Eggleston’s call for a long term mine plan for KCGM which incorporates the acquisition/purchase of properties around Mt Percy/Williamstown. I also support the call for a $2 dollars an ounce community trust fund being set up to assist with community infrastructure projects, sports development and indigenous employment opportunities.
“Information to hand shows that the owners of KCGM, Barrick and Newmont, are sitting on existing known gold resources that can comfortably push the life of mine way beyond the year 2040. Whilst I appreciate the need for caution in long term planning which is always subject to the gold price, clearly Newmont has been able to plan 40 years ahead with their Boddington mine, so it can be done here” Mr Chapple said.
“A stable long term planned mine life would be fantastic for the City of Kalgoorlie Boulder and would enable better long term strategic planning for the city and community”.
“It would be prudent to have a long term plan which incorporates Mt Percy/Williamstown. It’s far cheaper to be mining open pit oxide ore from the surface to several hundred meters deep in the Mt Percy/Williamstown area than from the greater depths at the existing super pit operations.”
“It is also good business practice and more economical to mine the resources in the Mt Percy/Williamstown area, in conjunction with the Superpit while the price of gold is high, and it would be a good contingency plan in the event of a major pit wall slippage at the existing Superpit” Mr Chapple stated.
“For quite some time it has been rumored that Williamstown residents have been demanding large sums of money for the sale of their properties. Correspondence from the KCGM General Manager to the Williamstown Residents Committee in July once again rebuts that notion.”
Without a doubt Newmont and Barrick need to take a long term approach to all the existing gold resources under their ownership in the whole area. As I have already said mining companies should not warehouse mineral resources but put them into purposeful plans, if not then they should be returned to the State.
“Kalgoorlie Boulder has been losing out without a meaningful community trust fund and I am pleased that other people are starting to recognise that. In 1990 Gold Mines of Kalgoorlie were donating approximately 1 million dollars to a community trust fund, more recently KCGM’s direct contributions have shrunk to around two hundred thousand dollars per annum.” Mr Chapple stated
“Companies like Norton Goldfields, a smaller producer, with board approval agreed to donate $2 dollars an ounce to the community, while Barrick and Newmont’s direct community donation of $200,000 dollars through KCGM is a drop in the ocean compared to the wealth that they are ripping out of the super pit.
With KCGM’s annual production at around 800,000 ounces a year, a community trust fund of $2 dollars an ounce would mean around $1.6 million dollars annually being donated to the community. The former community trust fund helped fund the goldfields art centre, WA school of mines, Royal Flying Doctor Service and many other community projects.
For more information please contact Robin Chapple on 0409 379 263 or 9486 8255
