Gwalia Gold Mine
Encyclopedia
The Gwalia Gold Mine is located at Gwalia
, a few kilometres south of Leonora
, Western Australia
. It was originally established by Welsh
miners in the late 19th century and Herbert Hoover
, the later President of the United States
, served as the mine manager in its early days from May to November 1898.
It is operated by St Barbara Limited. Apart from Gwalia, St Barbara also operates the Marvel Loch Gold Mine
at Marvel Loch
and owns the Tarmoola Gold Mine
, which is placed in care and maintenance.
All three mines were previously owned by the now defunct mining company Sons of Gwalia Limited. Sons of Gwalia went into administration on 30 August 2004 and the company's gold mining operations were sold to St Barbara in March 2005 for A$
38 Million, having been valued by the Sons of Gwalia directors at A$120 Million. While Marvel Loch was operational before and after the sale, the Gwalia mine was already placed in care and maintenance at the time of the transaction. A fourth mine, the Carosue Dam Gold Mine
, ceased operation in June 2005 and has since been sold by St Barbara.
word for Wales
, Gwalia
.
The Sons of Gwalia reef was discovered by three prospectors who worked it for a brief time. After selling out to George Hall for £5,000 the later recouped his investment after only one month. In search for additional capital, Hall began negotiations with a London
firm, Bewick Moreing, who sent Herbert Hoover, a 23-year-old mining engineer, to the site. Hoover recommended Bewick Moreing purchase the mine, which they did with a cash commitment of £100,000 on 17 November 1897. He suggested himself as manager of the project and successfully reduced costs at the mine by hiring Italian
labour.
A fierce rivalry between Gwalia and neighbouring Leonora developed and a tram service was established between the two towns in 1903. From the 1920s, the town started to decline when external factors like the falling gold price started to affect the mine. On 21 December 1963, the gold mine at Gwalia closed and the town was reduced in population from 1,500 to 40. The Sons of Gwalia mining company was delisted for the first time on 4 February 1964. In 65 years of operation, the mine had produced 2,500,000 ounces of gold.
In the 1980s, a new Sons of Gwalia company, formed by the brothers Peter and Chris Lalor, descendants of Peter Lalor
, started retreating old tailings before mining the old workings. In 1999, having concluded mining the Gwalia open pit
, it started to develop an underground operation, passing through old workings by 2001.
On 4 September 2000, a flight
to the Gwalia mine with seven SGW employees failed to land, instead continuing on to Burketown
, where it eventually crashed, having run out of fuel. The pilot and the planes seven passengers were killed.
From 2001 onwards, the mine was part of the company's Leonora operations, after it acquired the Tarmoola Gold Mine
through a merger with Pacmin Mining. Tarmoola is located 40 km north of the Gwalia mine.
In December 2003, the mine was placed in care and maintenance after known gold resources were exhausted.
After a rapid rise of the company, unauthorised gold and foreign exchange trading activities by chief financial officer Eardley Ross-Adjie in the year to June 2000, ended up costing Sons of Gwalia more than A$190 million. Sons of Gwalia went into administration on 30 August 2004, following a financial collapse, with debts exceeding $800 million after suffering from falling gold reserves and hedging losses. Sons of Gwalia was Australia's third-largest gold producer and also controlled more than half the world's production of tantalum.
St Barbara purchased the mine from insolvent Sons of Gwalia in March 2005 with a three year plan to reopen it.
After a three year redevelopment, production resumed at the mine in September 2008, with the first gold pour being carried out in October 2008. The Hoover decline, named after the late President, was at 1,191 metres below surface as of 30 June 2009. The plant currently continues to operate on a campaign basis, one week on, one week off.
Gwalia, Western Australia
Gwalia is a former gold-mining town located 233 kilometres north of Kalgoorlie and 828 kilometres east of Perth in Western Australia's Great Victoria Desert. Today, Gwalia is essentially a ghost town, having been largely deserted since the main source of employment, the Sons of Gwalia...
, a few kilometres south of Leonora
Leonora, Western Australia
Leonora is a town in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia, located northeast of the state capital, Perth, and north of the city of Kalgoorlie. At the 2006 census, Leonora had a population of 401, about a third of whom are of Aboriginal descent. The area is extremely arid, with a...
, Western Australia
Western Australia
Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...
. It was originally established by Welsh
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
miners in the late 19th century and Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover was the 31st President of the United States . Hoover was originally a professional mining engineer and author. As the United States Secretary of Commerce in the 1920s under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, he promoted partnerships between government and business...
, the later President of the United States
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
, served as the mine manager in its early days from May to November 1898.
It is operated by St Barbara Limited. Apart from Gwalia, St Barbara also operates the Marvel Loch Gold Mine
Marvel Loch Gold Mine
The Marvel Loch Gold Mine is a gold mine located at Marvel Loch, 30 km south of Southern Cross, Western Australia.It is operated by St Barbara Limited...
at Marvel Loch
Marvel Loch, Western Australia
Marvel Loch is a small townsite of less than 100 people, some 401 km east of Perth, Western Australia. It is located 32 km south west of Southern Cross, along the Perth to Kalgoorlie Great Eastern Highway...
and owns the Tarmoola Gold Mine
Tarmoola Gold Mine
The Tarmoola Gold Mine is a gold mine located 29 km north-west of Leonora, Western Australia. The mine has been placed in care and maintenance since September 2004, when a pit wall failure forced its closure.It is owned by St Barbara Limited...
, which is placed in care and maintenance.
All three mines were previously owned by the now defunct mining company Sons of Gwalia Limited. Sons of Gwalia went into administration on 30 August 2004 and the company's gold mining operations were sold to St Barbara in March 2005 for A$
Australian dollar
The Australian dollar is the currency of the Commonwealth of Australia, including Christmas Island, Cocos Islands, and Norfolk Island, as well as the independent Pacific Island states of Kiribati, Nauru and Tuvalu...
38 Million, having been valued by the Sons of Gwalia directors at A$120 Million. While Marvel Loch was operational before and after the sale, the Gwalia mine was already placed in care and maintenance at the time of the transaction. A fourth mine, the Carosue Dam Gold Mine
Carosue Dam Gold Mine
The Carosue Dam Gold Mine is a gold mine located south of Laverton, Western Australia.It is currently owned by Saracen Mineral Holdings Limited.Carosue Dam was previously owned by the now defunct mining company Sons of Gwalia Limited...
, ceased operation in June 2005 and has since been sold by St Barbara.
History
Established in 1896 as the Sons of Gwalia mine, it was named after an archaic WelshWelsh language
Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...
word for Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
, Gwalia
Gwalia
Gwalia is an archaic Welsh name for Wales. It derives from the Medieval Latin Wallia, which in turn is a Latinisation of the English 'Wales'...
.
The Sons of Gwalia reef was discovered by three prospectors who worked it for a brief time. After selling out to George Hall for £5,000 the later recouped his investment after only one month. In search for additional capital, Hall began negotiations with a London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
firm, Bewick Moreing, who sent Herbert Hoover, a 23-year-old mining engineer, to the site. Hoover recommended Bewick Moreing purchase the mine, which they did with a cash commitment of £100,000 on 17 November 1897. He suggested himself as manager of the project and successfully reduced costs at the mine by hiring Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
labour.
A fierce rivalry between Gwalia and neighbouring Leonora developed and a tram service was established between the two towns in 1903. From the 1920s, the town started to decline when external factors like the falling gold price started to affect the mine. On 21 December 1963, the gold mine at Gwalia closed and the town was reduced in population from 1,500 to 40. The Sons of Gwalia mining company was delisted for the first time on 4 February 1964. In 65 years of operation, the mine had produced 2,500,000 ounces of gold.
In the 1980s, a new Sons of Gwalia company, formed by the brothers Peter and Chris Lalor, descendants of Peter Lalor
Peter Lalor
Peter Fintan Lalor was an activist turned politician who rose to fame for his leading role in the Eureka Rebellion, an event controversially identified with the "birth of democracy" in Australia.- Early life and migration to Australia :...
, started retreating old tailings before mining the old workings. In 1999, having concluded mining the Gwalia open pit
Open-pit mining
Open-pit mining or opencast mining refers to a method of extracting rock or minerals from the earth by their removal from an open pit or borrow....
, it started to develop an underground operation, passing through old workings by 2001.
On 4 September 2000, a flight
2000 Australia Beechcraft King Air crash
Sierra Kilo Charlie was the call sign for chartered Beechcraft 200 Super King Air which, on 4 September 2000, crashed near Mount Isa, Queensland, Australia. The flight plan of the aircraft called for the pilot to fly between Perth, Western Australia, and the mining town of Leonora, Western...
to the Gwalia mine with seven SGW employees failed to land, instead continuing on to Burketown
Burketown, Queensland
- Morning glory cloud :From the months of August to November, a rare meteorological phenomenon known as "Morning Glory" - long, tubular clouds, some up to 1000 km in length - is often observed in the skies above Burketown.....
, where it eventually crashed, having run out of fuel. The pilot and the planes seven passengers were killed.
From 2001 onwards, the mine was part of the company's Leonora operations, after it acquired the Tarmoola Gold Mine
Tarmoola Gold Mine
The Tarmoola Gold Mine is a gold mine located 29 km north-west of Leonora, Western Australia. The mine has been placed in care and maintenance since September 2004, when a pit wall failure forced its closure.It is owned by St Barbara Limited...
through a merger with Pacmin Mining. Tarmoola is located 40 km north of the Gwalia mine.
In December 2003, the mine was placed in care and maintenance after known gold resources were exhausted.
After a rapid rise of the company, unauthorised gold and foreign exchange trading activities by chief financial officer Eardley Ross-Adjie in the year to June 2000, ended up costing Sons of Gwalia more than A$190 million. Sons of Gwalia went into administration on 30 August 2004, following a financial collapse, with debts exceeding $800 million after suffering from falling gold reserves and hedging losses. Sons of Gwalia was Australia's third-largest gold producer and also controlled more than half the world's production of tantalum.
St Barbara purchased the mine from insolvent Sons of Gwalia in March 2005 with a three year plan to reopen it.
After a three year redevelopment, production resumed at the mine in September 2008, with the first gold pour being carried out in October 2008. The Hoover decline, named after the late President, was at 1,191 metres below surface as of 30 June 2009. The plant currently continues to operate on a campaign basis, one week on, one week off.
Production
Production of the mine:| Year | Production | Grade | Cost per ounce |
| 1997-98 | 113,767 ounces | ||
| 2000 | 169,025 ounces | 3.28 g/t | A$301 |
| 2001 | 164,895 ounces | 3.13 g/t | A$324 |
| 2002 | 79,353 ounces 1 | 1.99 g/t | A$457 |
| 2002-03 2 | 237,036 ounces | A$470 | |
| 2003-04 2 | 165,802 ounces | A$476 | |
| 2005 | |||
| 2005-06 | inactive | ||
| 2006-07 | inactive | ||
| 2007-08 | inactive | ||
| 2008-09 | 82,795 ounces | 3.3 g/t | A$719 |
- 1 2002 results for January to September only.
- 2 Combined result for the Leonora operations, consiting of Gwalia and Tarmoola. The Gwalia mine however closed in December 2003.
Sources
- The Australian Mines Handbook: 2003-2004 Edition, Louthean Media Pty Ltd, Editor: Ross Louthean
- Western Australian Mineral and Petroleum Statistics Digest 2008 Page 34: Principal Mineral and Petroleum Producers - Gold
- Gwalia Historic Site - Herbert Clarke Hoover
- Hoover's Gold
External links
- Place Names Search Results - Gwalia Geoscience AustraliaGeoscience AustraliaGeoscience Australia is an agency of the Australian federal government. It carries out geoscientific research.On a user pays basis it produces geospatial products such as topographic maps and satellite imagery.-History:...
website - St Barbara website - Leonora operations
- MINEDEX website
- How sons of Lalor built, then sank, Sons of Gwalia The Sydney Morning HeraldThe Sydney Morning HeraldThe Sydney Morning Herald is a daily broadsheet newspaper published by Fairfax Media in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1831 as the Sydney Herald, the SMH is the oldest continuously published newspaper in Australia. The newspaper is published six days a week. The newspaper's Sunday counterpart, The...
- Article on the collapse of Sons of Gwalia