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Wednesday, 27th September 2006 (3811 views)

A new mine in Australia that promises to create hundreds of jobs over the coming ten years has poured its first gold bar, ABC News reports.

The Union Reef mine near Pine Creek in the country's Northern Territory poured a nine kilogram bar and its manager predicts that a similar sized bar will eventually be produced every day when the plant becomes fully operational.

Tom Heaton commented: "Once we have commissioned the plant we are going to go on to the real mining operations and that will lift the gold content."

He also said that the Union Reef mine will generate A$2 billion over the coming decade, as well as 250 jobs. This is more than were predicted earlier this year, when owner Northern Gold said the Union Reef mine would probably employ 100 workers.

The importance of the gold industry in Australia was recently spelled out by the chief of global mining leader Rio Tinto, Charlie Lenegan. "Without the overseas investment gold brought, contemporary Australia would be a smaller, poorer and more vulnerable nation," he said.

 

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