Stawell Gold Mine

The Stawell Gold mine is located in the town of Stawell, northwest of Ballarat in central Victoria and is approximately 250 kilometres northwest of Melbourne.  It is the second largest gold producer in the state of Victoria, behind Fosterville. With modern production spanning 27 years, the mine has an excellent track record of resource to reserve conversion at 80%. The mine produced its two millionth ounce of gold on the property in March 2010.

The town of Stawell has a population of approximately 6,500 people and most of the mine's workforce resides in the town or immediate surrounding area.  Stawell has a history of gold mining dating back to the mid-19th century Victorian gold rushes.

Geology

The Stawell Goldfield is located in the western Stawell Zone of the Lachlan Fold Belt within the Victorian goldfields, historically one of the highest producing goldfields in Australia. The Stawell Zone is a belt of predominantly deformed meta-sedimentary rocks representing the lower parts of the Cambro Ordovician Lachlan Fold Belt stratigraphy bound to the west by the Moyston Fault and to the east by the Coongee Break.

Mineralization

There are three different ore bodies at Stawell: Magdala, Golden Gift and Wonga. Both the Magdala and Golden Gift ore types are hosted within the Magdala volcanogenic sediments. Within the Magdala deposit, there are three main ore types: Central Lode, Basalt Contact Lodes, and Magdala Stockwork Lodes.

There is only one identifiable ore type in the Golden Gift and this is termed the Golden Gift Stockworks, which contains a spectrum of all Magdala styles. Mineralization includes abundant recystallised pyrrhotite and coarse grained arsenopyrite, pyrite and visible gold.

The Wonga deposit is hosted within the Wonga Schist that is part of the Leviathan Formation along two main fault systems. The gold mineralization is hosted by arsenopyrite disseminations and quartz veins within the Wonga Schist.

Exploration

A $7.7 million exploration program has been budgeted for 2011. Exploration activities, totalling 24,000 m, include follow-up drilling on two gold discoveries made in 2010 and continued exploration in the higher grade GG6 zone.