Ex-Aussie Miner Tries Working in New Zealand’s Largest Mine
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 พ.ค. 2024
- Macraes gold mine is the biggest mine in New Zealand. After working FIFO in the mines of Western Australia I got a job out there. This video is a snapshot of working in New Zealand's largest mine.
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I clicked on this out of pure boredom not thinking about much but you explained everything so well and in such a simple way I actually managed to learn how the entire mining operation works... you worded everything perfectly mate
Wow cheers mate, appreciate it!
@@TomWoodwardVideos me too mate thanks :)
The same for me actually a good watch extremely informative
me too! You're a great communicator Tom. Well played.
Cheers 🤙
I didn't even know we had a big gold mine here in NZ. Great vid, thanks
I used to help supply it with some of the raw materials
There’s 2 😊
I only knew of waihi
It's worth driving past, all those huge dump trucks look like Tonka toys in comparison to the size of the mine.
You're probably from Auckland then.
I did a 4 year apprenticeship and 6 years in a combined steel plant as a tradesman before I escaped to NZ. 4 Million tonnes of ore to finished product a year - lots of the same process and environment - quite a bit more dangerous - thanks for sharing but never again!
At least you got in mate went through the hole recruitment process few years back only to be strung along as the job was already taken internally.
Mate what a fantastic video. Love the fast paced format and detailed background.
You've got a real knack for producing videos. This is excellent stuff.
I've never been into Macraes, but as a Dunedin local I have driven by it a few times. Had no idea it was so busy round that way.
Great video mate. I live just up the road from this mine but never seen inside until now. Thank you!
You did a great job explaining everything.
Awesome shots and interesting facts. Thanks!
Thx for sharing the experience.
In March I met a Mine worker in Barcelona
It was so interesting talking to him
Great video - thank you so much for taking the time to have some videos of the processing plant.
Those gold particles you saw at 3:47 are actually pyrite which is what the flotation process is there to collect. That is sent to the autoclave (you missed that out) which cook the pyrite thoroughly to release the contained gold which is then leached with cyanide. McCraes does not have a high enough head grade for that much visible gold to be present - Porgera back in the day used to have that but we are talking over 60-100 g/t whilst McCraes is only 2.5 g/t with little to no visible gold.
Brilliant video mate. My father in law worked McRae's back in the late 80s up til 91. He was one of the geologists testing the ground back when it was being mooted. He has loads of interesting stories about the place.
Incredible informal video bruv the best ive seen so far 🤟
Glad you liked it!
Great insight into your work
What a solid video! Cheers
Great vid. Well made. Awesome.
Fascinating, thanks for sharing bro 🤙
Cheers man
Great video! Enjoyed and subbed. I didn’t even know we had a big mine on that scale. Very cool.
Well put together video.
Something i was never interested in until I watch this video. Very captivating and informative
What a great vid , well done 👍
Great vid mate 👍
Mate i freaking love ur vids. Keep makikg em. Freaking loved living in oseania. Greetings from finland. Stay safe bro!
Thanks mate this is awesome info
Cool video man. Thanks for sharing.
Sweet, cheers man 🤙
I have a very similar life story, started out in Reefton's gold mine, moved to aus for 8 years and did FIFO in iron ore and gold for most of that. Now back in NZ doing something completely different.
Who would have guessed your an award-winning video maker, no wonder this was so well made/ narrated, great channel man. Keep up the camera work.
Haha award winning. cheers dude.
Cool video. Beautiful family. That part of NZ certainly does get cold, but you get the beautiful scenery at least.
I used to go there every 3 weeks for years, as a truck driver to pick up waste grease from the processing plant and service the parts washers at Goughs and the open pit workshop. Craig Ritchie was my contact person there. Shane would drive the forklift to load my truck. I NEVER got to look around the plant in all those years but I was so CURIOUS what it was like, so your video gives me a fantastic insight. Thanks!
Solid video man, been here a few times ,just passing threw to get to cromwell central otago and often stop to admire the massive hole in the ground but to see it from drone footage and the workings inside, just awesome. Thanks for posting
Good informative video mate 👍
Great content mate
Wow good presentation,clean and informative,dam did know we had a mine that big , finding work life balance is everything thing to me the 7 on 7 off sounds good .
I didn't even know NZ had anything like that. Thanks for the video you explained things clearly. Thank you.
Excelent video!! Cheers :)
Underrated channel
I accidentally learnt so much, cheers mate !
what a great vid I saw some tanks i helped make at Wallace & Copper in the late 90s its good to see what there were used for
Nice vid. Tom. I remember prospecting Nunns which now pat of Macraes' Round Hill operation back in the 80's. Amazing to see how far it has all gone. Nga mihi.
Awesome stuff
Great video.
I dealt with this site since it was first built (still do😂)
Learnt something new every trip.
Love the old Pilbara Access shirt, worked for Breight in 2021 and doing my advanced scaffold with them this week at their training centre in Perth
Is Pilbara Access still going? I looked online and couldn’t see them.
Hey man.. sweet vid. As was your Oz/Bali one too.. Cheers
My old man moved us over from Aus in 1990 as this mine was setting up. Chief geo then mine manager in the mid 90's. We lived in a house on Horse Flat rd above Golden Point which looks like it has a haul road past it now. I went to the local school of 30 kids, about 50/50 farming and mine kids until the end of '92. The place has changed a fair bit since then.
Great vid bro!!
Cheers dude 🤙🤙
Cool vid. Reminded me of my time at Woodlawn mine on the shore of Lake George, just north of Canberra back in the late '70s. We mined primarily copper lead and zinc, but there was als gold and silver present. I worked in the mill as a flotation operator, intensely interesting job as it was a constant balancing act adjusting reagent additions to the constantly changing headgrades in the ore. Should have stayed longer, but it's closed now anyway.
Well done good video.
Thanks Tom and youtube algorithm, video delivered!
😂 cheers
My Popa Kevin was the explosives safety guy down there for 20 odd years... got to see all sorts of cool stuff there and such a beautiful part of our country :)
1:08 Naseby is honestly one of my favourite places in NZ. The way it feels like its from the past is such a welcome contrast to this city dweller.
Top video bud. Ive lived with a gold mine as a neighbor for 24 years and taken a huge interest in all thats involved. you explain it well. (waihi)
Cheers mate, would be cool to get up there to see how it works.
@@TomWoodwardVideos just like yours -without the opencast. Oh - but the beach is 11minutes away and town is full of yellow and blue geos sipping lattes.
Damn, pretty convincing mining advert.
Why didn’t I learn about this in school? Very informative!
Kiwi here working in underground mining in Western Australia. Might have to look at moving back home after this.
Nice video mate. I'm one of the maintenance electricians at the processing plant. Been there for 10 years this year. Enjoying my days off after a swing of night shifts!!
Sweet man, it was one of you guys who was working Drive in Drive out of Queenstown and staying at the Dunbak pub. Forgot his name though
@@TomWoodwardVideos that would be Braden K. Bloody nice bloke. He was buddied up with me when he first started. He's on the opposite shift to me now so I don't see him much.
What's the automation team like there, is it on-site or subcontractors?
Awesome video 💪 i knew there was gold mining out there just had no idea the scale of the operation.
Great piece of reporting on a subject few "kiwis" have any idea this commercial mining operation exits in this country , excellent factual audio commentary and crisp editing as well
Sweet cheers man
Thank you, I now understand all there is to know about bluegrass music.
Bloody awesome from a Kiwi in Melbourne
Im currently working at mccraes mine as a contractor for blasting, its a really good place to work and best job i ever had
Hey how do you get into that? I’ve got a blasting ticket and some experience. Is there anyone I can contact?
I worked at Macraes in 2011 but the shifts in the open pit were a killer then. 3 days on, 24 hours off, 3 nights on 3 days off. That was pre- half the pit collapsing in and refilling the mine. I thought that would kill the place as gold prices were dropping at the same time and it threw out all the prospecting locations. Seems like it’s kept afloat and managed to find its feet again though!
Also very well articulated and edited video mate, well done! It’s nice to hear someone describe the Aussy H&S nonsense too, the only country in the world where paperwork is touted as lifesaving and the punishment for not writing every hazard out on credit-card sized piece of paper is dismissal. We’ve been yelled at on sites for being completely accident-free yet not filling our quota for take-5’s. Hopefully Macraes maintains that common-sense-is-not-a-swear-word mentality.
Awsome video. Def sells the mine well. Week off would be amazing.
Hi thanks so insightful I grew up in dunedin and haven't live there for fifty years my parents would tell me how large mccraes had became to actually see it has been great.
very cool, right in my backyard
This video was fantastic. I was amazed that this is 3% of our GDP, Imagine if we actually built more and walked the walk to be more like Australia and do something productive to start making ourselves some money to get us out of the mess we are in. Regardless of government, until we start being productive and get some serious industry being built instead of just buying and re-selling houses the whole year to create an illusion of GDP growth, we are going to remain falling behind Australia and the rest of the world for many decades to come.
I actually got fact checked on that number. Apparently it’s closer to 1% of GDP so still a lot but not that high. I totally agree with everything else you said. The rate of growth is also compounding. NZ will be much poorer than OZ in 20 years if it only maintains a growth rate of 1% per annum less.
100% Mining is a real and very necessary industry. Resources are literally what feed and make the world economy function
very very good video. One thing only IMO: slow down those big panning shots, the slower the better, plus you will have more footage :) they made me feel a bit queasy. Good work Tom, love from Auckland.
I tried for years to get a job ther. Would apply and just like you never here back. Even showed up on sight oneday. Ended up having to go to the Pilbara to get into the mines. Shame cos im local to Macraes.
Yeah there’s not always positions because there’s only one mine. Good idea to try and get in on the shutdowns. Always need loads of guys for that. Then you meet everyone and get a bit of experience.
Living the dream bro
Good video i worked a sag circut in isa now underground gold. You exsplained alot so well, sorry if i missed it in the video but whats the money like conpared to 140k a year in aus..
Good to see my old overalls still working hard just like when I wore them 😉
Haha sweet. Tristan is it? Yeah they gave me those to use since I was a contractor. Apparently you had just left recently. That was a year ago. Must be random to spot them in a video on TH-cam 😂
Do you have a Cameron Wilton working there?
Tom, great video! Do your licenses in Australia work in NZ too?
I had to switch them to NZ ones. Was easy enough because it's mostly the same laws.
Thanks Tom for an excellent video, well explained and edited. It brought back memories from when I helped build that place as an electrician in 1990. In the morning we would be sweating pulling in cables and freezing our butts off by afternoon with horizontal snow. It looks as though it has got bigger but I can still recognise a lot of it. Do they do tours there? Cheers mate for a fear dinkim vid 😁
Sweet cheers man. I haven’t heard of tours. Maybe just contact them. They seem to take around any official looking person.
@TomWoodwardVideos I could always turn up in a hard hat and hi vis and no one would probably question me, 😃
😂
Bloody awesome and informative bro
Cheers man
I had a female friend who was a geologist on this site 33 years ago. Nice to see it in the flesh!
After 25 odd years in process plants in WA and all over Africa I can SMELL this video!
I applied for one of the Electrical Super's jobs that came up recently, but, like you, the money didn't stack up.
Especially when you take into account the lack of on-site accom and messing, and THEN add the additional 3 hours of the commute every day, the numbers are just BS for the hours.
Don't get me wrong, I'm used to working 12hr/13 day shifts, but this is something else.
It also sounded more like a Leading Hand job to me, and after what I've done over the years, it sounded like a step backwards.
My last expat job, before covid slammed the borders shut and luckily stranded me at home rather than on site, was in Guinea (West Africa, not the other ones!).
Was there 2.5 yrs and they'd just extended my contract another 2 yrs, bugger covid, I should be retired beginning of last year!
Good video mate, quick and dirty intro to gold extraction. Should maybe have mentioned the hot caustic elution circuit, always good fun to be around when the pump seals are leaking...
It only really works out if you already live in Dunedin or Oamaru. Then it’s good because you go back to your own place after work, see the misso and kids ect. Doesn’t workout without accom if you move there to do it.
I'm a New Zealander and I knew the Macraes mine existed, but I had no idea it was that large.
oh we have a gold mine in NZ 😃 loved this video
Thanks ☺️
Great video mate wow 7g per tonne isn’t much and I thought Kalgoorlie would have been richer ore than it has but on average it’s probably quite high considering
There would be some seriously skilled people there
Just a coupe of corrections on your commentary there cobber.
The balls dont grind the ore to a fine dust, water is added to the ore being fed into the grinding mill and the balls turn the ore into a fine slurry.
Also refined gold doesn't go to the gold room to be turned into gold bars.
Gold solution goes to the gold room and with the process of electrowining and smelting the gold is turned into gold bars.
The gold bars are then sent to the Perth mint to be refined.
Nice vid all the same.
Haha I was expecting a few corrections. I bet the team out at Macraes are making them at the moment. I wasn’t there long enough to get the full process figured out.
@@TomWoodwardVideos I worked there way back in the day, loved the place. Not so much the shitty cold winters and all to often the shitty cold summers.
As far as the processing of gold, that old plant has everything. Great place to learn your skills and head across the ditch and make some decent coin.
Your video bought back fond memories of my time there.
Thanks for posting.
Not sure how I found it as I was looking for reviews on camcorders.
😂 only on the internet can someone called Itchyballbag call out your inaccuracies and be right! 😂
@@TomWoodwardVideosconsider yourself pinched and rolled.
Worked Underground in Fraser's for 5 yrs as an U/G H.V Electrician in A Crew
Hey mate, nice video. Do you know if the IsaMill was running in the process plant?
Nah not sure
@@TomWoodwardVideos no worries, thanks m8
Very well done! My Son is an exploration GEO in WA. He's off to Canada next week looking for Lithium after completing a stint in an underground Gold mine in WA. Hope he manages to find a good load? Regards from Gisborne.
Cheers, good luck to him 🤙
Good to see another vid Tom, love your work. Bit different than fifo'ing out of Perth into Bali mate . 3% of GDP? Wow!
Cheers man, first comment! 😂
Yeah it’s different, definitely less money but still cool because there’s so much stuff to do with your time off around here.
MinRes are starting to fly out of the Pilbara 2/2 to Brisbane, might be worth a look mate
Good to know
Mining as a whole - coal, gold, iron ore, etc - contributes only 0.8% of New Zealand's total GDP. This mine alone definitely doesn't generate 3% of NZ's GDP
Been in the gold room here
Great informative video thanks. I worked drill and blast in Aussie in a Copper mine in the early 1980's. From your description it has gone full H&S loony tunes since then. Ours was a wet mine. 10 on 4 off. Some dump truck drivers were a bottle of bundy a night sort of guys, so not flash first thing in their 200 tonne dump trucks!. In the married quarters neighbourhood a LOT of dope was smoked. Single mens quarters there would be knife or gun fights once every few months. It had a real wild wild west feel about it. Quite eye opening for a young 20 year old Kiwi.
😂 they call those the bad old days of mining now. These days there’s a breath test every morning to enter the gate and a drug test about a once a week.
@@TomWoodwardVideos The money certainly was insane. I moved from drill and blast underwater in South Australia to D&B in the mines and doubled what I was making. It certainly set you up for the rest of your 20's, having enough funds to tour the world and see stuff that no longer exists: Steam trains all through India and China, no cars in Beijing, only bicycles and rotary hoes with trailers and trucks, the Soviet union with all their camouflaged airports and logistics bases along the Trans Siberian.......
Could you even get into the Soveit Union back then? I went to Russia in 2013 and that was hard enough. You had to apply to get an invitation to apply for a tourist visa for 30 days. Then you had to stipulate every place you would be on every night's stay. And it cost a fortune.
I thought back then it was purely off limits. Oddly, Iran and Afghanistan were amazing countries to travel though, apparently.
@@TomWoodwardVideos Was a wee bit risky as I was a TF soldier at the time!! But I grew a big beard in the mines. In the 1980's everyone wishing to ride the Trans Siberian knew the drill: get to Hong Kong and start the visa process for China, USSR, Mongolia, East Germany, Holland. I remember there was a protocol, you had to get the visas in a particular order so one embassy could not see you had a visa for the enemy....despite knowing you could have only come from one place. The USSR and East Germany visas were stapled in, so when you entered West Germany you could rip them out without damaging your passport. China to Mongolia was an interesting transition: the train stopped for three hours as they changed all the train wheels (bogies) to the wider Mongolia/Russia guage. Big long shed with hundreds of hydraulic jacks underneath lifted everything up, rolled the China bogies out and in with the Russia ones!
@@TomWoodwardVideos The doors to China had only been open for back packing tourists for two years. Prior to 1981 you could only get in on an organised tour. Living on $10/day was easy in 1984. Three day boat ride down the Yangtze river (no dams then) was $15. The Trans Siberian ticket was $165 USD. 5 day trip. Sold a pair of my jeans and a walkman with insulation tape holding the headphones together to the train guard on the black market, and that paid for Russian Champagne and caviar for the entire trip! India, Burma, Malaysia, China all ran enormous steam trains. Made any steam trains you see in NZ look like Tonka toys. Russia was steam trains to begin with thenthey went electric somewhere around lake Bakayl.
Beautiful place central Otago!!! They made a fortune when they opened up millers flat.
Isn’t Millers Flat by Roxburgh?
Yes it’s between Roxburgh and Dunedin
I worked the gold mines across WA including kalgoolie back in 90’s don’t miss those bloody flies 😂😂
They’re horrendous. Worse than the sandflies in NZ. I hate it when they crawl inside your ears and buzz.
4:29 good place to forge the One Ring.
My Grandfather basically founded that mine. His name was Edward Fraser.
Totally agree with your uptake on OH and S in Australia 100%
Waihi is big too.
My father was a metallurgist, worked on the copper mines in Zambia where I was born before we emigrated to South Africa where he worked on the gold mines (ERPM - East Rand Proprietary Mines).
Gold $ Platinum mining in South Africa is all underground , following gold seams running horizontally through the quartz rock. I learnt all about raise lines, shafts, levels , half levels, stoping, hanging wall and foot walls. I went underground at the Impala Platinum mines (implats) in Rustenburg to see how that was done.
My father would bring home some of the worn down balls about the size of a cricket ball (they used a harder stone type ball) they were quite attractive.
I think my father said they used cyanide to extract the gold from the slurry - pretty scary to think in the 80’s and 90’s they still used that method. The tailings (slime as we called them) dams have over the years been further refined as extraction method a have improved .
Interesting to see Gold mining here in NZ, had no idea. Great vid, reminds me of my childhood and my father. Thanks.
My father also said the hardest thing about mining wasn’t getting the gold out of the rock but rather the logistics of getting the men and machinery in and out of the mine.
Yeah it’s just like an army operation. Massive complex logistics and guys just doing there own thing
So how long did you work in NZ until you called it quits?
What do the wages compare like to Pilbara Iron ore?
Great work mate ..just maybe we might have another GOLD mine over in Tarra's much closer to Qtn ...you sure do have expensive tastes QTN rich man town
great video thanks. can you tell me what happens to the waist cyinyed
We tip it into the river.
Nah just kidding. It gets put into specific bins made for it, then a company that deals with it comes with trucks to take it off to their facility to dispose of it. I’d have to work out there to find out how they do that.
@TomWoodwardVideos .. They then tip it into the river.
Haha.. no I seriously don't think that.
As an aussie in construction the paperwork is bullshit and out of control. As you rightly pointed out there should be a focus on competence and not admin. Filling paperwork in doesn't stop dumb cunts being dumb cunts.
Extreme heat and cold are no fun. However being in the cold would be more manageable.
Great story brother, thanks for sharing.
Be interesting to see what comes of bendigo
Totally. I was actually thinking of researching that and making another video about it 😂
Ay I work at the OGL Waihi operation
You never heard of Stockton?