What is involved in the project?

	Above: An overlay showing the position of the Favona area in relation to Waihi and Martha Mine.

For several years a drilling programme tested the area much deeper than the old workings and produced evidence of an ore body of sufficient size and quality to be economic to mine by underground methods. Newmont Waihi Gold has begun construction of the decline for an underground operation to work an area adjacent to the historic Favona Reef System.

Various resource consents and permits were granted in 2004. Underground access will be gained from near the existing processing plant by a portal (opening) and a decline (sloping tunnel) Ore and waste rock will be mined in horizontal slices from the bottom up employing methods known as ‘cut and fill’

The ore will be crushed and stockpiled at the existing mill for processing. Tailings will be pumped to the existing storage facility as happens now. Waste rock will be used to backfill mined areas underground. There will be little to be seen on the surface apart from an air vent shaft, the access portal, and the infrastructure needed to service the underground workings and transport the ore to the existing process plant at Baxters Road.

Above: The Favona Reef system in relation to Martha Mine and the Tailings Storage Facilities.

Above: A schematic cross section of the Favona Reef system.