The Tarmoola or King of the Hillsgold mine is located 29 km north-west of Leonora, Western Australia. The mine was placed in care and maintenance from September 2004, when a pit wall failure forced its closure. It is owned by Saracen Mineral Holdings Limited. The Tarmoola mine was developed and opened in May 1990 by Mt Edon Gold Mines Australia NL. It is now known as King of the Hills, the original name for the area from its discovery in 1897, and is owned and operated by Saracen Mineral Holdings Limited. Saracen commenced underground mining operations at King of the Hills in July 2016.
History
The mine, opened in May 1990, was discovered and developed by Mount Edon Mines until April 1997, when it was taken over by jointly by Camelot Resources and Teck Corporation through Reachwest Pty Ltd for A$158 million. Camelot Resources was renamed Pacmin Mining in June 1998 and took control of all assets of the two companies in Australia. Pacmin was then taken over by Sons of Gwalia in October 2001 for A$210 million, the mine thereby becoming part of the company's Leonora operations, together with the Gwalia mine. This merger also secured the Carosue Dam mine for Sons of Gwalia. In February 2004, a pit wall failure caused disruptions to the mine, leading to its eventual closure in September 2004. In retrospect, the purchase of Pacmin and Tarmoola was seen as very expensive, especially in the light of gold reserve write downs and operational difficulties at the mine. 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 but has not reopened the mine since. The company placed the mine on the market in 2007, seeing little value in operating the mine because of high costs of production. St Barbara estimated that it would cost A$700 per ounce to mine at Tarmoola, at an average grade of 1.1 g/t. However, the sale of Tarmoola did not eventuate. St Barbara has been reviewing the option of underground mining at Tarmoola in 2009 and processing the ore at Gwalia. King of the Hills has since been sold to Red 5 Limited; production restarted in January 2018 with Pit N Portal as the contractor.
Production
Production of the mine:
1 2002 results for January to November only.
2 Combined result for the Leonora operations, consisting of Gwalia and Tarmoola. The Gwalia mine closed in December 2003.
