Boddington to hit full gold production by year end

Newmont says the ramp up of the operation, which will be the group's cornerstone asset for many years to come, is at about 70% and climbing. And, the group says it will continue to further develop this under-explored region

PERTH - 

Production at Australia's new one million ounce per year super gold mine at Boddington south of the Perth metropolitan area in Western Australia, is expected to reach full production by the end of this calendar year.

The "on track" ramp-up forecast was announced at the opening day of the Paydirt Australian Gold Conference by owner Newmont Mining Corporation..

Newmont Asia Pacific's regional group executive-operations, Philip Stephenson said in the conference keynote address that the planned 12 month ramp-up schedule at Boddington, 130 kilometres southeast of Perth, is "on track and is currently about 70% complete".

Stephenson said the first gold at Boddington for "Newmont's cornerstone asset for many years to come", was poured and shipped in September last year "with recoveries for both gold and copper above design expectations".

"The ramp-up is at about 70% and climbing and we anticipate reaching full capacity late  in 2010 as this is a mega project and will correspondingly take time to ramp-up," said.

"Newmont will, however. continue to further develop this under-explored and highly prospective greenstone belt - so do not be surprised if this operation goes for at least 30, maybe 40 years."

Newmont is also a 50% owner in Western Australia's giant Superpit gold mine at Kalgoorlie, as well as the Jundee mine in Western Australia's north eastern goldfields, Tanami mine in the Northern Territory and Waihi gold operations on New Zealand's North Island.

On global gold equity markets, Stephenson said there had been a huge growth in Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) holdings with almost 600 tonnes of gold going into ETF holdings in 2009 as investors sought greater insurance against global economic uncertainty by boosting physical stocks of gold.

"This has increased ETF holdings to just below 45 million ounces or around 75% of annual mine production globally for the entire industry," he added.

"To put this gold movement into perspective, the flight to gold in 2009 was twice what we saw in 2007 and 2008."

He said the operating outlook for Newmont for 2010 was total gold output of 5.3 million to 5.5 M oz at around $US450-480/oz which is expected to improve to around $US310-340/oz with copper credits for Boddington and Batu Hijau in Indonesia taken into account.

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