taper, page-56

Hi Chuk,
Tanami has shut down before but you need to go back a few decades prior to Newmont, it never shut down during Newmont days due to the fact they were only interested in Groundrush not the other 41 Open Cuts on the lease, hence why Newmont put a sealed road from Groundrush to the plant. There are a few issues with the rain, the first being Halls Creek Shire,most supplies come from W.A and to access the Tanami you go through the Shire which once they shut it down to Rain is closed for periods of up to 6 weeks at a time, 4 or 5 yrs ago the supplies where trekked across the Nullarbor to Alice Springs where the shire work endlessly to try to keep the road open, this is purely on the power of the Granites Mine, Newmont have sporadic worst affected areas tarmacked but these cease at there gate, still 130 odd ks from ABU area. ABU have relied on the Tanami Mine as the point of drop off for supplies during heavy wet seasons as access to the camp was impossible for anything other then a convoy of 4WD's, not sure if that option still remains though, I have been there when there has only been 4WD access and all other machinery has been parked up for 2 months,( im referring to Road Trains here) The other thing to take into account is the Tanami area is not just affected from the rain that is dumped over there heads, the majority of the time the Tanami Hwy is closed is due to the river of water that flows down from the north and turns the hwy and the landscape into a part catchment area, that's why some of the old haul roads out there are built 2mtrs above the ground level. They will be affected by rain at some stage, but like the other players in the district they plan for these events with minimal impact to there business and who knows, ABU will more then likely have a strip at some stage during there growth and mitigate the rainy season even more.
Cheers.