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Kolar Gold Limited (Kolar Gold) is a gold exploration and development company, incorporated in Guernsey and focused primarily on the Kolar Gold Field region to the east of Bangalore in India. The Group was established in 1997 to secure and revive the Kolar Gold Fields operated by Bharat Gold Mines Limited (BGML) in joint venture with the local workforce and community. As the timing of any decision regarding the sale of the Kolar Gold Fields was uncertain, in order to diversify the Company’s strategy, management approached Geomysore Services India (GMSI) in 2009 to form a strategic partnership to develop the Kolar Gold Projects which surround and are adjacent to the Kolar Gold Fields.
The Kolar Gold Projects have been divided geographically into three tenement groups, being the North, South and East Kolar blocks and straddle the states of Andra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Lithological, structural and geochemical characters similar to the historic BGML mine site are found within these project areas and it is concluded that these represent continuations of the Greenstone Belt.
Mining at Kolar Gold Field’s has operated for over 120 years and produced approximately 25M oz of gold at an average grade of 15.9 g/t. BGML mined near vertical lodes over a strike length of 7.3 km to a maximum dept of 3200 metres and developed 1400 km of tunnels and 100 shafts.
During the first two decades of mining (1884 - 1904) the average grade of the ore produced from near-surface underground mining was 45 g/t Au. During the subsequent century, the grade of the ore mined decreased to 2.5 g/t Au. The mine became uneconomic in the late 1990's due to poor management, exploration, underinvestment, and the focus on labour-intensive deep underground mining leading to the abandonment of mining operations in 2001.