The Fimiston gold mine, widely known as the “Super Pit,” is one of Australia’s most iconic and productive open‑pit gold operations. Located next to Kalgoorlie‑Boulder in Western Australia, it has shaped the region’s economy and mining culture for more than a century.
The Fimiston Operations sit immediately east of Kalgoorlie‑Boulder, roughly 600 km east of Perth in the Goldfields region.
They are operated by Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines (KCGM), now a wholly owned subsidiary of Northern Star Resources following its acquisition of the former Newmont–Barrick joint venture interests.
The Super Pit is among Australia’s largest open‑pit gold mines and forms the core of the broader KCGM asset, which also includes the Mt Charlotte underground mine and the Fimiston and Gidji processing plants.
Annual gold production from the combined Fimiston and Gidji plants can reach up to about 500,000 ounces, underpinned by large ore reserves and a long mine life.
The deposit is hosted in Archean greenstone belts typical of the Yilgarn Craton, with gold mineralisation associated with shear zones and quartz veining.
Mining is carried out by conventional open‑pit methods using drill‑and‑blast, load, and haul operations, with ore trucked to the Fimiston mill for crushing, grinding, and cyanidation.
Northern Star has approved major expansions, including a $1.5 billion upgrade to more than double Fimiston’s milling capacity to around 27 million tonnes per year by 2029.
These investments, alongside ongoing exploration, aim to extend operations to at least the mid‑2030s and sustain the Super Pit’s status as a flagship Australian gold producer.
Fimiston exemplifies how a mature, high‑grade gold system can be continuously re‑engineered through technology, capital investment, and resource growth. Its longevity, scale, and integration of open‑pit and underground mining make it a benchmark case for large‑scale gold operations worldwide.
