THE REMARKABLE POTENTIAL OF THE HISTORIC HAILE GOLD MINE (Invited Presentation)

For 185 years, the Haile Gold Mine has sought to tap the potential of the richest known gold deposit in the South. Today, that potential is driving an all-out effort to see if gold mining can once again be a meaningful contributor to the Southern economy.

Since gold was discovered on Benjamin Haile’s plantation in South Carolina in 1827, the allure of treasure hidden within the folds of the Carolina Slate Belt has enticed miners from the most primitive to masters of their trade. The mine has had numerous owners, was destroyed by Sherman’s troops in 1865, and has had four separate periods of sustained production. Departing teams have often felt that they were leaving the best behind, while new comers, arriving after breaks of 20 to 25 years, have believed that with higher prices and new technology, the potential is theirs for the taking. Importantly, the Haile’s potential has always ranked as superior to that of other prospects in the Piedmont.

The Ridgeway Mine, also in South Carolina (and inspired by the Haile), mined 1.5 million ounces of gold between 1988 and 1999. Until then, the Haile’s output of 368,000 ounces topped all Southern gold mines and with 4 million ounces of measured and indicated resources and an ore body that is open along strike as well as at depth, it could soon regain that title.

Like most Southern gold mines, surface oxide ores had been depleted by the time of the Civil War. It wasn’t until 1880 that a German engineer who perfected a chlorination process for treating refractory ore found a key to unlock the value. Start-up operations using milling and cyanide extraction in the 1930s and heap leaching in the 1980s never had enough cash to develop the mine’s known potential.

Today, Romarco Minerals of Canada, with a new geologic model and $650 million to invest, is increasing the scope and scale of the Haile. The mine will employ 850 people and utilize the most advanced technology and environmental safeguards, including fine grinding, carbon-in-leach recovery and double containment of cyanide at each step in the process. There is no heap leaching. Development, however, awaits a prolonged environmental review by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the outcome of which will largely determine whether gold mining has a future in the South.