One of Australia's top five gold mines, Tropicana transitioned from large scale open pit mining to a combination of open pit and underground mining in 2020 when the Boston Shaker underground mine started ore production.
This was followed by the Tropicana underground mine. The Havana underground mine is scheduled to begin ore production in the first half of 2027.
The site has produced more than 5Moz since it began operations and in calendar 2025 a total of 435,892oz was produced on a 100% basis.
Open pit and underground mining activities are carried out by mining contractor Macmahon Holdings.
In February 2025, a large renewable energy facility was completed. The wind-solar-battery storage facility was completed and integrated into the existing power facility to create one of the largest off-grid power systems in Australia.
The renewables expansion was designed and constructed by Pacific Energy, which owns and operates the combined renewables-natural gas power station under a 10-year Power Purchase Agreement. A total of 61MW of clean energy was integrated into the existing 54MW gas-fired power station at Tropicana.
The expansion incorporated four 6MW wind turbines, a 24MW solar farm comprising 42,120 solar panels, and a 13MW battery storage system (BESS).
Over the life of the agreement, Tropicana’s diesel and gas consumption for power generation is expected to reduce by 96% and 50% respectively, and carbons emissions by more than 65,000 tpa.
The Havana 4 pit is scheduled to be completed in mid-2026, at which point ore will be sourced from the Havana 6 pit where waste stripping began in the second half of 2025.
Development of the new Havana underground mine was on track at the end of 2025 with ventilation, power and underground workshop infrastructure well advanced.
The processing plant has a throughput capacity of ~9 Mtpa. The crushing circuit consists of a primary gyratory crusher feeding a set of secondary cone crushers and tertiary high pressure grinding rolls. A 14MW ball mill and a 6MW ball mill operating in parallel complete the circuit.
Full Asset Potential projects included the introduction of an improved maintenance strategy across the underground and open cut fleets.
A re-base of the open pit mine plan and design also resulted in a step-change in fleet productivity, achieved with a reduced fleet.
Exploration successfully extended the Boston Shaker, Tropicana and Havana orebodies at depth and more than replaced the Mineral Reserve depleted by mining in 2025.
