| 45 Federation Mining: Snowy River Gold Project MINING The Alton drilling team. Drilling results over the next five months proving the gold is there will attract other investors, says Mark Le Messurier, managing director of Federation Mining. The team at West Coast’s Colin Holmes Hydraulics know that time is money and that having a machine out of action is no fun for operators. Contractors and mining operations are often running on tight schedules as it is, luckily for them Colin and his team are only a phone call away. With more than three decades on engineering and mechanical experience, Colin started as a hydraulics specialist but in reality, he and his crew deal with a huge variety of issues that come up when running heavy machinery in demanding environments and conditions. As fate would have it, his son Callan, who has a mechanical background, is now based at Birch ield Coal Mines maintaining the trucks and Taylor, who has an engineering background, works onsite at the Snowy River Gold Mine. Both sons have been helping Colin for well over a decade now. The history of the Snowy River Project dates back to 1905 when the main ‘Birthday Reef’ was discovered by a small prospecting group and mining continued until 1951, producing almost 21 tonnes of gold. OceanaGold is supported the Snowy River Gold Mine project’s establishment with seed inancing for the potential future construction of a tunnel to the base of the historic workings. Federation Mining will then establish underground drill chambers Reducing machinery down time and undertake a drilling program. Federation Mining started drilling in late February, the 11-person Alton Drilling team is now working day and night shifts and they have completed more than one kilometer of drilling to date. “With the Snowy River Gold Mine project we basically approached Federation Mining and told them the services we could provide and it’s worked well ever since,” Colin explains. “It’s a complex project with a lot of moving parts so they need someone who can respond to that. “We are basically supplying all the hydraulic components and also helping with labor, providing itters because skilled labour can be hard to ind over here.” His son Taylor has taken the lead on the Snowy River Gold Mine project, putting in quite a few night shifts and taking care of the logistics on-site. “He relates really well to the other young guys on site [near Ikamatua] and it’s all been running quite smoothly. They have what they call ‘Jumbos’ which are big drill rigs on wheels with two big arms and hydraulics all over them, with lots of hoses. The environment they are in underground is quite hard on the gear so that’s where we come in to get them back up and running.” Federation Mining
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