Macraes expansion permitted

An expansion to the Macraes gold mine will allow an extra 2.8 million tonnes of ore to be extracted.

A hearing commissioner appointed by the Otago Regional Council, Dunedin City Council and Waitaki District Council recently granted consents for OceanaGold to increase the size of its Coronation North Pit by 25.8ha.

This would allow an extra 2.8 million tonnes of ore to be extracted, which equated to more than 100,000oz of gold.

The operation, about 30km northwest of Palmerston, produces about 5 to 6 million tonnes of ore a year.

The consent will extend the pit's mining life into 2021, although the company plans to operate at the site until at least 2024.

Macraes operations general manager Matthew Hine said the consent was provisional and he did not want to comment until appeals closed on November 7.

The company would also extend the pit stability layback to the south and east of the pit as a safety measure, which would increase the size by a further 7.6ha.

It would partly backfill the western end, where mining has been completed, with about 19.3 million tonnes of waste rock, which will help stabilise the pit wall.

Overall, the amount of disturbed land was 50.9ha.

However, it would surrender existing consent rights for a 52.9ha area which was considered to have the highest conservation value of anywhere in the site.

Hearing commissioner Brent Cowie said this meant ''overall there is a net benefit to environmental quality'' from the consent.

In his decision, he said the amenity values of the Macraes mining area were ''quite low'' due to previous and existing open-cast mining.

While gold at the site was a finite resource, without the consents ''the employment of large numbers of staff would be jeopardised'', Dr Cowie said.

The consent said Macraes had 575 employees and contractors at the site, and a further 25 in its Dunedin office.

The application was limited-notified, meaning only people and organisations with a direct interest in the consent could submit.

Two submitters appeared at the hearing.

One spoke about coming to an agreement with the company around night-time access to the haul road.

The other said the consent should not be granted as previous consents were not fully complied with.

The Department of Conservation raised the concern the pit extension could affect local groundwater levels in the basalt contact wetland, Dr Cowie said.

''This was reviewed independently by two companies with expertise in geohydrology, and both concluded that this was improbable.''

jono.edwards@odt.co.nz

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