| 71 T T Hugh de Lacy Dredge proving its worth The Millers Flat dredge is sifting through between 200 and 250 cubic metres of gravel an hour. MINING Hawkeswood Mining The biggest working gold-dredge in the country is back in operation at Millers Flat in Central Otago after Hawkeswood Mining bought it from Southland company Waikaia Gold and spent $3.5m refitting and shifting it across the lower South Island. The dredge is working Hawkeswood Gold’s 75ha claim after the company overcame a raft of legal and technical challenges to start harvesting half a gram of gold per cubic metre from Millers Flat. The dredge is sifting through between 200 and 250 cubic metres of gravel an hour after it took 35 truckloads to shift it in pieces to the new site, and nine months to complete the operation. “It cost a lot more to shift the dredge and get it producing again than we expected – about three times as much,” Hawkeswood Mining owner Andrew Hawkeswood says. “This is the first time we’ve used a floating dredge; all our previous mining has been with land-based plant. “The dredge is sitting in a three-metre-deep pond, and although there are a couple of other floating dredges working on the West Coast, ours is the biggest in the country still operating. The Grey River dredge is bigger, but it’s been sitting idle upriver from Greymouth for some years now.” Hawkeswood Mining was drawn into a legal battle with the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE). which charged it in April last year with mining at Millers Flat on its exploration-only permit. The company defended the charges by saying that the size of its test pit was necessary to fully explore the site’s resource and the methodology needed to mine it, something that MBIE hadn’t taken into full account. Eventually the parties reached an agreement under which Hawkeswood Mining avoided a conviction by making a sizeable donation to an agreed charity and paying royalties to the Crown for the gold it had recovered during testing. It denied mining on its exploration permit, saying the extent of its excavations at the site were needed to fully assess the resource and prepare the site for the arrival of the dredge. The company is owned by Andrew and his wife Kelly, and employs their children Jack, 24, as a machinery operator, and Ella, 21, as an administrator, with a total staff of 24 likely to grow to 28. Jack Hawkeswood is a fourth-generation miner after Kelly’s grandfather and father, who operated Kaipara Excavators for years before selling the company’s assets to Andrew and Kelly in 2006. “The dredge was working the Freshford field for Waikaia Mining for seven years before we acquired it, and it required a bit of modification to take into account the differences between the Waikaia and Millers Flat gravels,” Andrew says. “Even at a total cost of $3.5m, buying and shifting the dredge was about half the cost of building a new one, and we expect it to operate at Millers Flat for at least six years, possibly seven or eight. “At the same time, we’ve got a full programme of exploratory drilling over other sites in Central Otago and Southland, and we’ll have two operations running at the same time over the next two or three years.” Contact Josh & Jayde Gunn for all enquiries: 03 446 8902 027 777 3024 lakeroxburghcontracting@gmail.com 20t & 13t Diggers, Trucks & Loader 6t Digger & 1.7t Mini Digger Road Upgrades & Grader Maintenance Entrance Ways & Driveway upgrades Gravel Supplies & Gravelling House Pads & Landscaping General Farm Maintenance Fencing & Post Driving Wood chipping & Tree Removal Repairs & Maintenance on Earthmoving Machinery • Proudly Supporting Hawkeswood Mining Jeremy 027 482 3778 Daniel 027 336 2270 wbmechanical@outlook.com Auto Electrical Solutions Air Conditioning Service & Repair Extensive battery range 48 Boundary Road, Alexandra 9320 03-4486434
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