About the application

Location and area

  • The mining lease application covers approximately 4716 hectares, partly located within Exploration Licence (EL) 6188 in the Wilcherry Hill area, approximately 40 km north of Kimba on the Eyre Peninsula.

Proposed mining operation

The project involves the proposed development of a gold and iron ore mining operation.

Accessing the gold and iron ore is proposed to involve a combination of open cut and underground mining. The gold will be crushed, milled, and processed on site, with doré gold (gold bars that have been produced on site) transported from site in armoured vehicles. The iron ore is magnetite and will be crushed and screened on site generating a direct shipping (DSO) quality ore which will be transported to customers or an export port.

Mining operations are proposed to extract approximately 200,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) of gold bearing ore (and up to a total of 956,000 tonnes over five years) to produce 79,833 ounces of gold ore, 793,000 tonnes of iron ore at 58.6% iron and 21 million tonnes of low grade and waste over a 5-year period. The life of the project is proposed to be six years (including 1 year for construction).

The primary proposed components of the project are:

  • Two open pits comprising the West Pit (gold only) and the East Pit (gold and iron ore)
  • Underground gold mining operation
  • Associated material stockpiles and waste rock facility
  • Iron ore processing plant and services
  • Gold processing plant, including tailings storage facility, reagent storage and services
  • Power plant
  • Mine access road (already constructed)
  • Water supply wellfield (already constructed), pipeline and water storages
  • Mine administration office, workshop, ablutions and crib room

The deposit

In November 2020 the gold and iron mineral resources for the Weednanna Gold-Iron Deposit was updated. The deposit is estimated to contain 1,106,000 tonnes grading 4.3 g/t gold for 152,000 ounces of gold and 1,150,000 tonnes grading 59.4 % iron. The dimensions of the Mineral Resource area are 1,300 m (north-south), 600 m (east-west) and from surface to a maximum depth of 220m.

Application and approval process

Alliance (Eyre) Pty Ltd lodged a Mining Lease (ML) application over part of exploration licence (EL) 6188 on 28 February 2023.

Following amendments, the application underwent a period of statutory from 27 September 2023 to 26 October 2023.

In total, one public submission was received.

On 2 February 2024 DEM requested that Alliance (Eyre) Pty Ltd provide a formal written response to matters raised by government and the public submission.

Upon submission of the response document, DEM will complete the detailed assessment of the application and additional information.

Should a ML be granted, it would be limited to the operations outlined in the application. MLs once granted require the approval of a separate operational Program for Environment Protection and Rehabilitation before any on-ground works can be undertaken.

More information

Contact the Mining Regulation Branch, Department for Energy and Mining via email: DEM.MiningRegRehab@sa.gov.au