Contractor Dies at Duketon South Mine as Injury Rate Stood at 0.0
Key Facts
A contractor died in an incident at Regis Resources’ Duketon South mine in Western Australia, Business News reported. The mine is north of Laverton, within the Duketon project, which the company says is about 130 kilometres from the town. The incident occurred at a site that forms part of the company’s gold mining and processing operations in the region. At the end of the September quarter, the company recorded a 12-month rolling average lost-time injury frequency rate of 0.0. That compared with a rate of 0.30 in the June quarter, according to the company’s quarterly report.
Duketon South’s operations include the Garden Well and Rosemont processing plants, with annual processing capacity of 5 million tonnes and 2.5 million tonnes, respectively, along with surrounding open-pit and underground deposits, according to Regis’ asset page. This setup gives the operation a scope beyond a single site, encompassing mines and areas that supply the two processing plants. In the September 2026 quarter, gold production at Duketon was about 56.1 thousand ounces, compared with 62.5 thousand ounces in the June quarter. All-in sustaining cost averaged $3,657 per ounce, versus $3,642 in the previous quarter, according to the company’s report. These figures place the incident in the context of quarterly production and costs, without establishing any effect of the incident on output.
Regis partly attributed weaker production in the September quarter to heavy rain during the month that disrupted mining at open-pit operations and the haulage of ore to the mills. The company said the disruption led it to complete mill feed with lower-grade stockpiles and reduced the grade of ore processed. Group production was 83.0 thousand ounces for the quarter, and Chief Executive Jim Beyer said it was "in line with our expectations, taking into account the heavy rainfall in September." Beyer added that the rain delayed access to higher-grade ore and hindered its haulage. The company cited these factors to explain quarterly performance, while the reported figures do not estimate the impact of the fatal incident.
Regis had expected Duketon production to be weighted toward the second half of fiscal 2027, as output gradually increased from several new open-pit mines. The company left its fiscal 2027 production and cost guidance unchanged for both operations, according to its report to September 30. This means the published guidance predated the incident reported in the coverage, and the report does not estimate its impact. Available information did not detail the circumstances of the incident, the scope of any operational suspension or the agencies investigating it. It also gave no estimate of lost production or guidance update in light of the incident.