The Tropicana Gold Project is located 330km ENE of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia.

Tropicana is located on the western edge of the Great Victoria Desert. The traditional custodians of the area emanate from the Wongatha and Spinifex peoples.


Ownership

  • 30% Regis Resources Limited
  • 70% AngloGold Ashanti (JV Operator)

Background and History

The Tropicana discovery was made in 2005 and additional discoveries were made at Havana in 2006 and Boston Shaker in 2010. A Bankable Feasibility Study was completed and development approval received in 2010. Mining commenced in 2012 and first gold was produced in September 2013. In September 2020, commercial production was declared from the Boston Shaker Underground Mine, the first underground operation at Tropicana. In 2022, production commenced at the second underground area, Tropicana.  Whilst recently the development of a third underground mine, Havana underground, was approved.

Exploration is targeting additional underground ore sources and new, regional open pit ore sources.


Geology

The Tropicana joint venture concession packages comprise approximately 2,600km2 of tenements stretching over some 160km in strike length along the Yilgarn Craton and Fraser Range Mobile Belt Collision Zone. Tropicana lies to the west of a major tectonic suture between the Yilgarn Craton and the Proterozoic Albany-Fraser Province that stretches over 550km. The majority of the project covers tectonically reworked Archean rocks which form the eastern margin of the Yilgarn Craton. The regional geology is dominated by granitoid rocks, felsic to mafic paragneiss and orthogneiss, and felsic to ultramafic intrusive and volcano-sedimentary rocks. Tropicana is a rare example of a large gold deposit within high grade metamorphic rocks that have undergone widespread recrystallisation and melting.


Mining

During FY24, mining activities at Tropicana continued within the Havana open pit and across the Bosdton Shaker and Tropicana undergrounds. During FY24, a total of 1.29Mt of ore and 15.98Mt of waste material was mined at Tropicana.


Processing

Ore Resources have grown consistently, resulting in a 270% increase in Tropicana underground Ore Reserves including production of 490koz of gold since 2020.

tropicana oblique view of the mineralised corridor showing actual and conceptual open pit and underground production areas and the 0.3 g/t au mineralised zones (pink).

 

 


 

Tropicana Operation (for FY2021)