Wafi-Golpu

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Wafi-Golpu is a large copper and gold deposit in Papua New Guinea , about 50 km southwest of the port city of Lae in Morobe Province . The Wafi Golpu project is part of the 50:50 Morobe Mining Joint Venture between the South African gold producer Harmony Gold and the Australian Newcrest Mining , which also includes the Hidden Valley mine. The project comprises the Wafi epithermal gold deposit and the two porphyry copper-gold mineralizations Golpu and Nambonga North.

history

In the early 1980s, the Wafi A gold deposit was discovered during the nationwide search for porphyry copper deposits by CRA Exploration Pty Ltd , now Rio Tinto . In 1990 Elders Resources and CRA Exploration first explored the Golpu porphyry copper-gold deposit. However, the two companies separated from the project. Between 1994 and 2003 there were different owners, including Abelle Limited from Australia and the US company Aurora Gold . The South African Harmony Gold took over Abelle in 2003 and thus gained control of the project. 2008 bought Newcrest for 525 million US dollars to the project, and received in mid-2009 50 percent of the joint venture.

location

The deposit is located on the western flank of the Timini Mountains, four kilometers from the wide valleys of the Watut and the Markham River. The project can be reached via the paved Timini / Demakwa road and a 38 km long, unpaved road.

resource

The deposit has 870 million tonnes of mineralized rock with copper resources of 8.9 million tonnes and gold resources of 19.3 million ounces . In the mining area could be the, after the Grasberg mine in which to Indonesia belonging West New Guinea and the Oyu Tolgoi mine project in southern Mongolia , are the third-largest gold and copper reserves in the world.

Exposure

Annual production is estimated at between 600,000 and 800,000 ounces of gold and between 300,000 and 500,000 tons of copper. A preliminary feasibility study is expected to be completed in early 2012, including the cost of building a new road, setting up a mining camp and associated infrastructure, and starting work on access to underground exploration. The deposit is unlikely to go into production before 2017.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ mon: (September 21, 2011) Harmony Gold: Papua New Guinea instead of South Africa ( Memento of the original from July 15, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. EMFIS - Emerging Markets Financial Services @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.emfis.de
  2. ↑ Carli Lourens: Harmony's Wafi project may be three times bigger than its largest mine Papua New Guinea Mine Watch
  3. ↑ mon: (August 19, 2011) Newcrest Mining future sole owner of the Wafi Golpu project?  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. EMFIS - Emerging Markets Financial Services@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.emfis.de  

Coordinates: 6 ° 58 '4.4 "  S , 146 ° 25' 29.4"  E