Awa Koura Mining has applied to the Central Otago District Council for a consent to mine gold on a rural property just south of Luggate between the river and State Highway 6.
The company expects to extract 1890 ounces of gold over three years — which would fetch nearly $10million today.
The application has been publicly notified.
In 2024 Cold Gold Clutha, which has the same shareholders as Awa Koura Mining — Daniel Walker and Orgilmaa Zundui-Yondon, of Takaka, and Peter Hall, of Westport — lost a bid to use a suction dredge to mine gold in a 23km stretch of the upper Clutha River between the Luggate Bridge and the confluence of the Clutha/Mata-Au and Lindis Rivers.
The new site, about 5km southeast of Luggate, is near Queensberry.
It is currently farmland but consent has been granted to subdivide it into eight rural lots.
Awa Koura’s application says it has an agreement with the landowner to extract gold for three years before the subdivision.
An attached economic report said the project was expected to directly add an average of $2.57m of GDP a year to the local economy once the mine was operational and employed an average of four staff.
There could also be up to another $0.53m of GDP a year in general impacts and up to 3.3 further jobs, supported by the multiplier effects of the mine’s procurement and providing goods and services to meet the needs of workers, the report said — a calculation based on extracting 1890 ounces of gold in three years.
Awa Koura’s application said it would mine about 50ha of the site using earthmoving machinery and a floating screen/trommel plant to extract the gold.
No more than about 4ha of the property would be worked at a time.
Once mined the land would be immediately remediated as the floating screen moved along.
Four employees would run the operation five days a week, 10 hours a day.
There would also be shipping containers, fuel storage and Portacom buildings on site.
Council planning officer Adam Vincent’s report said there would be a floating gold processing screen plant, five excavators, two dump trucks, a bulldozer, pumps and ancillary equipment at the site.
The main effects on nearby landowners were, in his opinion, noise, visual effects and dust.
Mining on the site could also adversely affect values associated with the Clutha/Mata-Au River, his report said.
Cold Gold Clutha’s application to dredge in the river itself was fiercely opposed by submitters, including Tarras residents with riverside properties and river users concerned about the dredge-anchoring wires.
In declining the application commissioners cited effects on the visual amenity, natural character of the riverbed and Maori cultural values.
Submissions on the new proposal close on March 19.
