Reefton Mine (Globe-Progress Mine), Reefton, Buller District, West Coast Region, New Zealandi

Regional Level Types
Reefton Mine (Globe-Progress Mine)	Mine
Reefton	Town
Buller District	District
West Coast Region	Region
New Zealand	Country

The Reefton Open Pit gold mine incorporated four older mines: Globe Progress, General Gordon, Empress and Souvenir. There is also significant exploration potential remaining at Globe Progress, and regionally within the Reefton Goldfield to extend production life through the discovery of additional refractory gold ore bodies.

The Reefton mine was commissioned in 2007, and comprises of a series of open pits developed along a major regional shear structure and its offshoots. It is located seven kilometres southeast of the township of Reefton, a historic mining district in the West Coast region of New Zealand’s South Island.

The processing plant which had a design capacity of one million tonnes per annum had been a steady performer, and when operating was at 60% above design capacity. A gold bearing concentrate was produced at the facility which was then railed over 600 kilometres south to Palmerston, from where it was trucked to the Macraes operation for final processing through the pressure oxidation and carbon in leach circuits. Later OceanaGold erected a plant at the mine site. The Globe Progress Mine produced a record 85,843 ounces of gold in 2010, and has a mine life based on current reserves only until approximately 2017.



The Globe Progress Mine has produced the second largest amount of gold ounces in the Reefton area after the Blackwater Mine. This is surprising considering its early history. The Union Quartz Mining Company began mining via two adits from 1876, until the company was liquidated in 1886 after finding little gold. The Oriental Mining Company operated just to the east from 1882 to 1886 also finding little gold. The Globe Mining Company operated from 1882 to 1896, with initially just seven shareholders. They erected a 20 head battery, but this had been overly optimistic, and gold results were poor. The company was about to be wound up when two prospectors employed by the company found what would be known as the auriferous Globe Progress Shear Zone. More money was raised from the long suffering shareholders, and a new shaft was sunk.

They sold the lease to the London based Consolidated Goldfields of New Zealand Ltd in 1896, having achieved 35 457 ounces of gold. Investors saw dividends amounting to 2.5 times capital invested. Meanwhile, the Progress Gold Mining Company had purchased the lease and infrastructure from the Oriental Company. The Progress company was headed by Gerald Perotti, who crops up relating to gold mining often across the region for this period. They dug two adits from Devils Creek to access the extension of the reef found by the Globe Mining Company. They achieved 24 271 ounces with a 17 400 pound dividend, before also selling out to Consolidated in 1896, who wanted to work the two mines as one.

Consolidated spun off Progress Mines Ltd to operate the mine, which was active from 1896 to 1926. The Consolidated company was founded by David Ziman, and made its fortune with South African mining. They sank a second shaft. Around the same time a massive aerial cable tramway was constructed to cart ore to the new Progress Battery, at 40 stamps, adjacent to the existing Globe Battery of 25 stamps, making it the largest overall battery complex on the West Coast.

To 1926 the combined mines had produced 1 045 888 tonnes of quartz for 418 343 ounces of gold valued at 1 652 011 pounds, with 384 062 pounds in dividends.

Little then happened until CRA explored the area in the 1980's. Around 1990 Macraes Mining Ltd took over with further exploration. In 1998 they merged with a small Perth (Western Australia) based company called Gold and Resources Development to become GRD Macraes. In 2003, OceanaGold was formed to take over the asset, with an open pit mine starting in 2007. The mine was closed in 2016.

The Globe Progress Mine is located in a geological complex area of shearing and brecciation within the sedimentary Greenland Group rocks (argillite and greywacke), with short, tight folding, straddling the Globe Hill Anticline. Gold is found in quartz breccia, country rock, and clay (pug), as native gold, and gold locked in disseminated sulphides (gold-arsenic-antimony). Globe Progress is the largest sulphide associated deposit in the Reefton area.

Mining occurs in the Globe Progress shear zone, which curves across the site from east-west to north-south. It is one kilometre long, dips south to south-west, shallower at the surface, and pinches/swells between 8 to 30 metres wide. There is an alteration halo around the shear to 200 metres. At the eastern end, the shear merges with the General Gordon, Empress, Souvenir open pit mine structures. To the west the shear zone is cut off at depth by the Chemist Shop Fault.

There is little oxidation at Globe Progress with fresh sulphides being found near to the surface. Shearing in the siltstone and mudstone has resulted in clay pug, plastic, dark grey to black, containing up to 10% fine grained arsenopyrite, with some quartz and country rock clasts.

Gold found in quartz was mostly extracted by historical mining, as they did not have the technology to deal with gold locked in sulphides. The quartz ranges from white to dark grey, massive, occasionally banded, usually fractured. It is often coated with thin films of sulphides, clay or stibnite. Fine grained pyrite and arsenopyrite is common, stibnite less so.

Gold is also found in quartz breccia, medium grey to greyish black, containing fine grained pyrite, arsenopyrite and stibnite common. Also, sheared and brecciated argillites and greywacke is found in the Hanging Wall and Footwall of shears, containing gold in disseminated pyrite and arsenopyrite.

Brecciated argillite and greywacke within and adjacent to the shears, host 2 to 10% sulphides, before grading into unbrecciated undeformed rocks.

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References