Ore at Darlot-Centenary is mined in an underground operation at the Centenary deposit, discovered in 1996 next to the Darlot Gold Mine, which had a historical production in excess of 500,000 ounces.[4] Homestake began mining the Centenary deposit in 1998.[5]
The site, was originally owned by Sundowner Minerals, which was taken over by Forsayth group, then Plutonic Resources, a major Australian gold mining and exploration company.[6][7]Homestake Mining Company purchased Plutonic in April 1998 for more than $1.0 billion,[8] and, in turn, Homestake was acquired by Barrick Gold at the end of 2001.[9]
In October 2013, Barrick finalised the sale of their Australian Yilgarn South mines, consisting of the Granny Smith, Lawlers and Darlot-Centenary mines, to Goldfields. Barrick sold the mines as it considered them high-cost and required cash to compensate for the rising cost of its Pascua-Lama gold project. The three mines accounted for six percent of Barrick's annual gold output at the time. Goldfields purchased the mines for US$300 million, half of which had to be paid in cash while the other half could be issued in shares.[10][11]
In August 2017, Red 5 Limited purchased the Darlot mine from Gold Fields for A$18.5 million, A$12 million of this in cash and the remainder in shares. At the same time, the company also purchased the King of the Hills Gold Mine from Saracens Mineral Holdings for A$15.5 million in cash and shares.[12]
With the completion of their new processing plant at the King of the Hills Gold Mine, Red 5 will close down the Darlot process plant in 2022 and instead process the ore from the mine's underground operations at the new facility.[13]
