Sunrise Dam, Australia
Sunrise Dam is an underground and open pit operation located 220km northeast of Kalgoorlie and 55km south of Laverton.
Ownership
100%
AngloGold Ashanti
Mineral Resource
of gold
Gold production
All-in sustaining costs
Capital expenditure
Workforce
including contractors
Overview and locality
Underground mining, carried out by Barminco under an alliance contract, is now the primary source of ore, following the cessation of mining in the open pit in 2014. The underground mine produces approximately 2.7Mt of ore annually, which is supplemented by low-grade stockpiles generated during open cut mining to fill the processing plant.
Ore from the Golden Delicious open pit, 12 km from the processing plant, will contribute approximately 1Mt of ore annually for several years to displace some of the stockpiled material from mill feed.
Surface infrastructure in place includes the site’s gas-fired power station, sealed airstrip, accommodation village, Central Tailings Discharge facility and workshops.
The 4.1 Mtpa processing plant comprises conventional gravity and CIL circuits and a flotation/fine grind circuit.
A major multi-year underground exploration programme underway at the site has identified extensions to known mineralisation and several significant new ore zones.
A brief history
- Open pit production began in 1997 and the main pit was completed at a final depth of 500m below surface in 2014.
- Underground mining started in 2003 with a number of different mining methods being applied, depending on the style of mineralisation and grade of the geological domain.
- Installation of a new fine grind and flotation circuit was completed in the second half of 2018.
- In 2021, mining commenced at the Golden Delicious satellite pit using open cut mining methods.
- A new higher-grade and shallower orebody, Frankie, was accessed by year-end 2021
ESG statistics 2021
All injury frequency rate
8.94 per million hours worked
Community investment
$1.01m*
Reportable environmental incidents
0
Water use
2,247ML
Water use efficiency
0.55kL/t
Energy consumption
3.10PJ
Energy use intensity
0.77GJ/t
GHG emissions
175kt
GHG emission intensity
43kg/t CO2e
Rehabilitation liabilities
$49m
* Total for Australia region
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