| Introduction | WNP – Air Discharge Assessment - Wharekirauponga Underground Mine -t| 4397169-66885702-23 | |7 1 Introduction 1.1 Overview Oceana Gold (New Zealand) Limited (OGNZL) operates an open cut and underground gold mining operation at Waihi in the Waikato Region. The current mine will complete production at the end of 2030. Ongoing exploration of the Wharekirauponga orebody, approximately 11km northwest of the mine Processing Plant, has identified mineral resources that OGNZL wishes to mine. The resource lies beneath Department of Conservation managed land (Coromandel Forest Park or CFP), within the Wharekirauponga Minerals Mining Permit (60541) area. OGNZL proposes to establish a new underground mine (the Wharekirauponga Underground Mine” or “WUG”) under the CFP two tunnels to the orebody from OGNZL land at Willows Road, a tunnel connecting with the existing Processing Plant in Waihi town and a separate decline to connect with associated infrastructure at Willows Road to enable development of the WUG. These new activities will form a key element of the Waihi North Project (WNP). The WNP seeks to extend mining until at least 2038. A dual tunnel will be developed out to the WUG from the intersection of the tunnel from the Willows Road decline. A bypass drive that connects the ore transport tunnel with the Willows Road tunnel is also proposed. The tunnels will be developed by drilling and blasting using modern drilling jumbos, rock loading units and supporting equipment. The WNP also includes other activities that will occur at the Waihi site at Baxter Road, referred to as the Waihi Surface Facilities Area. These include the mining of a new open pit near the Processing Plant (Gladstone Open Pit) which will be converted to a tailings storage on completion of mining the pit, a new tailings storage facility (TSF3) to the east of existing TSF1A, a new Northern Rock Stack (NRS) adjacent to the existing TSF2, upgrading of the existing Water Treatment Plant and upgrading of the existing Processing Plant to increase ore processing capacity from 1.25 to 2.25 million tonnes per annum. The air discharges arising from proposed activities at the Waihi Surface Facilities Area are discussed in a separate report.1 1.2 Project Summary 1.2.1 Overview An overview of the WNP project is shown in Figure 1-1. 1 Waihi North Air Discharge Assessment – Southern Development (Beca, 2021); prepared for OceanaGold (NZ) Ltd
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