Dominion Gold Operations Pty Limited has awarded HWE Mining, a division of Leighton Contractors a 4-year contract extension at the Challenger underground mine. The mine is situated 600km north-west of Adelaide in South Australia’s Gawler Craton region.

The Challenger project mines 420,000 tonnes of gold ore per year which equates to production of over 100,000 ounces of gold annually. Gold is mined using conventional uphole stoping methods.

The Challenger gold mine initially started out as an open-cut operation in October 2002, before transitioning to underground operations during early 2004. Full scale underground production commenced early in 2005 and the mine life is expected to extend beyond 2010.