Lake Cowal Mine was expected to be closed by now but mine general manager Craig Fawcett has told geologists working on the site their careers are ruined as they will never drill another ore body as rich as the one at the mine.
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"It's a company maker, it's magic," Mr Fawcett said of recent discoveries at the site.
Original owners Barrick had slated the mine for closure mid 2019.
New owners, Evolution Mining, have "done quite a bit of investment since 2015," Mr Fawcett said.
"I think we spent something like $100 million in capital investment back into the operation this year.
"One of the areas we are investing quite heavily in is the exploration success."
This exploration has led to discoveries which Mr Fawcett said will see 1.5 million tonnes of ore mined at the site per annum to be extracted from an underground decline.
He also said the mine could potentially put another two pits in to the south of the current mine pit.
"In essence we know they are economic entities," he said.
"To the north there is another pit.
"We've just gone underground, we went underground in March," he added of activities at the site."
At this point the underground is just a tunnel, it's not a mine.
"It's effectively just a tunnel so we can put drill rigs in and drill out the ore, if we sit on the lake and drill it out it costs us more and takes a lot longer," he said.
"We put the incline in, it's much closer to the ore body, so the holes we have to drill are much shorter, we get the assays back quicker and we can get the underground modelled quicker.
"If we do it from the surface we are looking at eight or nine hundred metre holes, it takes weeks and weeks to drill one hole whereas we can drill one hole in two days underground," he said.
Evolution currently has approval for its "underground exploration decline".
"We are going to go through the process of permitting for the full underground," Mr Fawcett told Forbes Council.
"From the drilling we're getting some pretty wide intersections and some pretty high grades.
"We're pretty excited."
Documentation for underground at the site should be submitted this month.
"We're very happy and hope to be fully mining by about July, 2021," he said.
In more good news for local workers and the Forbes economy Mr Fawcett said with what Evolution currently knows the life of the mine is expected to go until 2036.
"That's with what we know, we've got a lot of other stuff going on" Mr Fawcett said
The expansion is expected to cost in the order of $120 million with about 80 more people needed at the site.
"Because we're looking at the other open pits as well we're not just going to finishing one pit then do the underground and do the other pits, it will all happen together so there is not likely to be any retrenchments.
"Once the open pit is finished we'll just move to another area with open pits."
Evolution is currently providing employment for 41 Forbes residents, providing a major boost to the local economy.
"We don't import many people, we don't import people from overseas or interstate, they're mostly from within NSW and predominantly within regional NSW, they're all from within driving distance, within a couple of hours.
"We do have about 40 people from Forbes and 18 of them choose to live within West Wyalong while they are on shift.
"They prefer to do that so they don't have to drive back and forward each day."
Of the mines current 402 strong work force 384 are from NSW.
The current workforce is made up of 183 West Wyalong residents, 27 Wyalong residents, 41 Forbes residents, nine from Ungarie, three from Orange, nine from Parkes, six from Grenfell, 12 from Wagga Wagga, 16 from Condobolin, five from Burcher and six from Temora. Other locations provide 67 more workers.
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