Tropicana, Australia

Tropicana comprises a series of open pits and an underground mine located 200km east of Sunrise Dam and 330km east-northeast of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia.

Ownership

70%

Mineral Reserve

1.57Moz
of gold

Gold production

310koz

All-in sustaining costs

$1,304/oz

Capital expenditure

$87m

Workforce

978

Overview and locality

Tropicana is a joint venture between AngloGold Ashanti Australia Ltd (70%), which manages the operation, and Regis Resources Ltd (30%).

Tropicana is a large open-pit operation, with a growing underground mining component, after development of the site’s first underground mine beneath the Boston Shaker pit in mid-2020. Open pit and underground mining are carried out by Macmahon under an alliance contract. Open pit mining uses conventional drill and blast and load and haul methods, while underground mining uses jumbo development and mechanised open stoping. Since start-up, ore has been sourced from the Tropicana, Havana, Havana South and Boston Shaker pits. The Boston Shaker pit is currently the main source of open cut ore while a major cutback of the Havana pit is carried out. Open pit material will be supplemented by approximately 1.2 Mtpa of ore mined from the Boston Shaker underground mine, and stockpiles.

The Tropicana processing plant achieved throughput capacity of between 8-9 Mtpa following several upgrades, including the installation of a second ball mill. The processing plant comprises a three-stage crushing circuit, inclusive of energy-efficient high-pressure grinding rolls, followed by conventional ball mill grinding and CIL recovery.

A brief history

Open pit mining began during 2012 with first gold produced in September 2013
After a positive feasibility study, underground mining began at Boston Shaker in 2019
Tropicana reached the 3Moz production milestone in the first quarter of 2020
First stoping in the Boston Shaker underground mine took place in June 2020 with the mine achieving commercial production in September 2020
On 22 April 2021, Regis Resources acquired IGO’s 30% stake in Tropicana
Construction of a renewable energy facility began in the second half of 2023 and is on schedule for completion in early 2025. It will integrate 62MW of clean energy – solar and wind – into Tropicana’s existing 54MW gas fired power system, reducing the site’s diesel and gas consumption for power generation by 96% and 50% respectively, slashing carbon emissions by more than 65,000t annually over a 10-year period