MINING
$ 500 million
Annual revenue largest gold mine in Australia . First ore was sent to the crushing circuit in August 2013 , first gold was poured on 26 September , ahead of schedule and on budget , and the processing plant successfully achieved its ramp-up target of 95 percent plant availability at a throughput rate of 5.8 mtpa within six months . For IGO , Tropicana has been , and continues to be a fun ride , says Bradford . “ Once the startup and first production were behind us we started to unlock additional value in the project . One opportunity is ongoing exploration along the Tropicana belt for the next Tropicana , so watch this space because we think it may be there . Another is by “ drilling at depth beneath the existing Tropicana pits , most of which bottom out on the lack of drill information , where we expect to be able to significantly expand the known resources through this drilling .”
Additionally , there ’ s room to optimise production . Work to expand plant ’ s nameplate capacity from 5.8 mtpa to more than 7 mtpa is coming to its final stages , he says . “ The joint venture partners recognised that major items of equipment like the crushers , the high pressure grinding rolls and the ball mills all had spare capacity , this allowed us to expand capacity by working through the bottlenecks in the materials handling of the crushing circuit and
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