Newmont Goldcorp Corp. announced that its Board of Directors unanimously approved advancing the Tanami Expansion 2 project into the execution phase. The project is expected to exceed the company’s required internal rate of return with profitable production and mine life extending beyond 2040.

“The approval of our second expansion project at Tanami in Australia will further improve costs and extend the life of this world class mine in a core Newmont Goldcorp jurisdiction,” said Tom Palmer, president and chief executive officer. “Building on the success of the first expansion completed in 2017, Tanami Expansion 2 will provide a platform to further explore the area’s prolific mineral endowment and potentially extend the operation’s mine life beyond 2040. The Tanami district and Australia as a whole continue to offer significant value generating opportunities for our shareholders.”

The Tanami expansion project is anchored on the expansive Auron deposit, which was discovered in 2008, and is located stratigraphically beneath the original Callie orebody and, more recently, the follow up discoveries of Federation and Liberator. Tanami’s prolific orebodies are hosted by reactive stratigraphic units where high-grade gold mineralization is found at intersections with structural corridors. These predictable geologic features, combined with recent drilling results, provide a high degree of confidence in their continuity at depth.

The expansion includes construction of a 1,460 m (4,790 ft) shaft, additional capacity in the processing plant, and supporting infrastructure to enable profitable recovery of ore at depth to 2,140 m (7,020 ft) below surface. Additional information on the project will be provided with the company’s long-term outlook in early December.

The advancement of Tanami Expansion 2 into the execution phase represents a new and significant milestone for the operation. Since mining commenced in 1986, Tanami has produced more than 283 t (10 million oz) of gold and, in 2018, the operation achieved record production of 14 t (505,000 oz). Tanami is located 950 km (590 miles) southwest of Darwin and 563 km (350 miles) northwest of Alice Springs in Australia’s Northern Territory.

Newmont Goldcorp has the strongest and most sustainable portfolio of operations, projects and exploration prospects in the gold sector. These assets allow the company to sequence profitable projects in its unmatched pipeline to sustain 170 t to 20 t (6 to 7 million oz) of steady gold production over a decades-long time horizon.