Nestled just kilometres from the top end of Hannan Street, the most famous road in Australia’s most famous gold-mining city, Kalgoorlie-Boulder, one of the country’s largest gold processing plants is going through its commissioning phase.
When Northern Star Resources ties in this brand-spanking new 27 million tonne-a-year Fimiston plant sometime next month, it will deliver a step-change in processing capacity at what should become Australia’s biggest gold mining operation – KCGM.
It has been far from a straightforward journey for Northern Star though, as the company told investors and media on its site visit to KCGM yesterday, the gold is there – a 42-million ounce resource including a 15-million ounce ore reserve.
Now it is time to start harvesting the cash.
It was six years ago at the Diggers & Dealers Mining Forum in Kalgoorlie-Boulder – the 2020 event was held in October because of COVID, later than its traditional August setting – that Northern Star celebrated its merger with Saracen Mineral Holdings.
The rationale for the merger – combining assets and consolidating processing capacity – was underpinned by each party’s ownership of 50% of KCGM.
Execution of the plan has proved a bit more challenging than the promises made at the time though the strategy to consolidate remains central to WA’s gold sector.
And as 2000-odd delegates descend on Kalgoorlie-Boulder for the 35th edition of Diggers & Dealers, consolidation of the gold sector remains as prominent as Australia’s top ranking in the Commonwealth Games medal tally.
Hosted for most of its life in the southern hemisphere’s largest marquee erected next to the Goldfields Arts Centre, this year marks Diggers & Dealers’ first outing in the new Goldfields Community Pavilion.
Built at a cost of almost $12 million and part-funded by BHP to try to compensate for the Nickel West closure, this fixed-structure open-air carpark next to the Arts Centre will host most of the about 160 exhibiting miners, explorers and service providers.
Given that we are expecting rain tomorrow morning, a more robust marquee structure might be welcome.
The Community Pavilion almost temporarily hosted a few delegates, who were staying in Kalgoorlie’s most prominent multi-storey hotel, early on Sunday morning after they got kicked out of their beds because of a fire alarm. At that stage, the mercury was close to freezing at the top end of Egan Street.
But back to today’s opening day of presentations.
One would expect Joe Hockey, the one-time Federal Treasurer who enjoyed the odd pre-Budget cigar before becoming Australia’s ambassador to the US, to use his fireside chat with experienced mining reporter Dom Piper to talk about international relations, strategic minerals and – presumably – President Trump.
Hockey, nowadays a lobbyist, becomes the second former Australian ambassador to Washington to be the main attraction at Diggers & Dealers – Kim Beazley did the honours in 2024 and didn’t mince his words then when he urged Canberra to protect the country’s fledgling rare earths sector.
Did someone mention Northern Minerals?
Interesting that only a handful of ASX rare earths plays are at Diggers & Dealers this year, among them the Gina Rinehart-backed St George Mining.
Lynas Rare Earths, the national champion and a Diggers & Dealers mainstay during Amanda Lacaze’s reign as CEO, doesn’t even have a booth in the Community Pavilion this year despite still battling to get its Kalgoorlie refinery firing on all cylinders.
The line-up of gold giants who will take to the Arts Centre podium on Day 1 once Hockey has departed probably accounts for two-thirds of Australia’s gold production.
Agnico Eagles Mines will be followed by Northern Star, Evolution Mining, South Africa’s Gold Fields and Greatland Gold.
With this group of companies, M&A is never far away.
This time last year, Northern Star had just closed its takeover of De Grey Mining while just last week Evolution announced a deal to buy copper junior Carnaby Resources.
And in the lead-up to last year’s Diggers & Dealers, Gold Fields was in the process of gobbling up Gold Road Resources to secure 100% ownership of the world-class, but underperforming Gruyere gold mine north-east of Kalgoorlie.
Gold Fields has been operating Gruyere since the mine produced first gold in 2019. It will therefore be interesting to see if the South African major has achieved a performance turnaround now that it owns 100% of the asset.
We will have to wait until Wednesday to hear from Genesis Minerals, or Saracen 2.0 or Sons of Gwalia 1.3, on how it plans to integrate takeover target Vault Minerals and turn the Leonora district into the KCGM of the north.
And a few hours after Genesis presents, Regis Resources will explain how it plans to grow in the absence of intended takeover target Vault Minerals.
In the meantime, there are almost 100 million reasons to visit The Perth Mint’s booth – and not just for the chocolate bars. If you don’t believe this, check out Booth 66.
It promises to be a great first day of Diggers & Dealers.
