Revived NT mine to join Australia's modern gold rush
Chinese-financed company Hanking Gold is reviving the mothballed Mount Bundy mine south of Darwin, with the soaring gold price prompting predictions of profit from its first year of production.
A Chinese-backed company is reviving a dormant gold mine near Darwin in Australia's Northern Territory, capitalizing on the soaring gold price. Hanking Gold, a subsidiary of Hanking International, plans to start production in early 2028 with the initial revenue expected to begin flowing in the first quarter of the year. The company's CEO, Mark Qiu, claims the project will be profitable within its first year due to the current high gold prices, which are around $6,000 per ounce.
Hanking Gold has been working on the project for 12 years and has increased its estimated gold resource by 11 times. The Mount Bundy Gold Project is expected to be profitable at a gold price of $3,750 per ounce, a significant leap from the $600 per ounce price when the mine shut down in 1997. The operation will involve surface mining of low-grade ore and underground extraction of high-grade ore.
The mine's construction includes the building of a 400-bed worker accommodation camp and a new processing plant, which has been awarded to Perth contractor CPC Engineering. The company has also secured environmental approvals and built a $3 million water treatment plant to ensure the tailings and wastewater will not pollute the nearby Mary River system.
Written by urgent.news from ABC News AU's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — it may contain errors, so check the original before relying on it.
