Swent - One Shot for Gold: Developing a Modern Mine in Northern California

Homestake Mining Company McLaughlin Mine Tour Guide Script, Version 199301

Compiled by D. Enderlin, Geology Dept.

(Original Windows Word document: HMCTOUR.DOC)

Introductions: Tour Guide and Bus Driver

Good morning (afternoon) and welcome to Homestake Mining Companys McLaughlin gold mine. We appreciate your interest in the project and want to thank you for purchasing your tickets through the Lakeport Chamber of Commerce. These tickets are tax-deductible, charitable donations, and any proceeds over our expenses will go into a fund for various area programs and nonprofit organizations. Cameras are welcome on the tour, and please feel free to take pictures wherever you wish. No food and beverage consumption or smoking is allowed on the bus. Also, please make use of the garbage can up front. We are very ecologically minded here, and trash, either on the bus or on the grounds, is frowned upon. Thank you for your help!

Our first stop will be the lunchroom in back of our administration building.

This is the Administration building. It contains the office of the resident general manager and various administrative departments, including accounting and personnel. Just beyond the administration building is the maintenance building and warehouse. As with mines both old and new, the shop in the maintenance building is an important hub of activity. It is well equipped to fabricate or modify many of the hard-to-find parts necessary to keep our complex machinery in operation.

In modern gold mining operations, such as the McLaughlin Mine, huge tonnages of rock must be processed daily in order to recover enough gold and silver to make a profit. This is done in three major steps:

1. Mining, where gold-bearing rock is removed from the earth.

2. Processing, where the rock is pulverized and made ready for extraction of the gold.

3. Recovery, where the gold is dissolved from the powdered rock and ultimately poured into bars.

Each of the three steps requires careful planning, skilled operation, and adherence to strict environmental impact guidelines. During the course of todays tour, we hopeto show you how these steps all come together to make the McLaughlin Mine a safe, efficient, profitable and environmentally conscious world-class gold mining operation. If you have any questions or miss something, please feel free to ask at any time.

Homestake Mining Company video presentation

[The introductory video contains sufficient information to acquaint people on the tour with Homestake Mining Company, its size, and its history.]

In 1989, Homestake Mining Company produced 1,014,702 ounces of gold. The McLaughlin mine contributed nearly 284,000 ounces toward this annual total.

[Return to bus] [Drive to Model Room]

Model Room

These are the models of our crushing, milling, and processing facilities. Their construction was subcontracted by the Davy-McKee Corporation, who did the engineering work here in 1982 and 1983. They were built in Danville at a cost of almost $300,000 and were shipped here in 1983. In 1988 the model underwent a major modification to include details for a new $25 million facilities expansion program. This program was completed early in 1989. With ongoing and recent modifications to the models, it is estimated that Homestakes investment in them now totals $450,000! All in all, the models have definitely paid for themselves. Architectural modeling is used extensively in industrial planning. This is because three-dimensional planning is easier to do. It allows the engineers to see better how things work and fit together. The scale used on these models is -inch equals 1 foot. They are also helpful in safety and accessibility planning so things can be built with allowable headroom and adequate spacing in mind. Besides showing how things fit together, the models are useful for giving tours; training operators; showing specific areas to vendors, consultants, and technicians; and for troubleshooting various technical problems. Every element of the model is color-coded. Finally, its biggest savings comes in the inventory area. As you can see, everything is numbered, so there is no need to dig around in the files or out in the plant looking for replacement names and numbers. Things are not set out in here as they are on the property. Instead, they are arranged so that people can move easily among them to study specific areas.