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Australian Stawell Gold Mines will be closed within two years, despite Canadian company Crocodile Gold spending more than $100 million buying it, together with another mine earlier this year, reports local paper Stawell Times News.
The closure could affect 280 employees and another 100 contractors in the historic gold mining town, located in the state of Victoria.
Crocodile Gold chief executive, Chantal Lavoie, was quoted by the paper saying that both the Fosterville and Stawell mining operations “has moved into a transitional phase.”
However, BusinessDay believes the mine is unlikely to be operating beyond 2014, with all underground work expected to be finished within 18 months.
A further six months of processing stockpiles and rehabilitation work will take place above ground, meaning the mine’s 30-year life will almost certainly come to a close in 2014.
Stawell was first settled during the gold rush of 1853 and was named Pleasant Creek, but was later renamed to honour Sir William Foster Stawell (1815–89), the Chief Justice of Victoria.
3 Comments
disqussted999
Huh??? Please explain….
MINING.com Editors
As the article says, Crocodile may be closing down the mines. Executives visited Stawell in recent days, warning staff and the community that the mine was entering a ”transition” phase. Australian media reported that Crocodile strongly hinted during last week’s visit that other job opportunities within the company could emerge for the Stawell workers.
Ed233
My sources are telling me that Crocodile knew going into this deal that there would be a possibility for the mine to be shut down within 2-3 years. Officially they are saying that the acquisition was made for boosting up short term cash flow. This, in a way doesn’t seem to make sense given the potential costs going forward to complete a closure. On the other hand this mine has operated for years and there didn’t seem to be any indication for transition closure when reading the news releases from the previous owner Northgate Minerals who were subsequently taken over by Aurico Gold. So did Crocodile Gold really know all of the facts?
The community of Stawell is a population of just over 6,000 persons. A closure of this magnitude would seem to be devastating to the area. But there has been some political opposition against the mine because of proximity of the homes to the mine. In order for this mine to remain open it might need concessions from the locals in order to expand operations to extend the life of mine. This might be a situation where jobs will be placed on the block in exchange for concessions. There is no way I can see where Crocodile has the where with all to assume the jobs that will be terminated from a closure. And the distance from their mines makes it almost impossible for those workers at Stawell to travel to the other mines to work. For example the distance from Stawell to Fosterwell is something like 202 kilometers(125miles) which is something like a 3 hour drive. So do you want a job or do you want a closure? It might be that that is where the rubber meets the road.