A nickel country where there is more than nickel

New Caledonia is known for the importance of its nickel resource, but before discovering and exploiting this metal, gold was found as early as 1863 and soon after copper was found and mined in the Diahot valley.

From the beginning of the colony, prospectors and gold diggers have been looking for gold and other metals. The Grande Terre is an almost empty mountainous country with rain forests and shrubs hard to walk in. However, everywhere, traces of the old works can be found, diggings, trenches, shafts, addits, washing sites, railways. No mineralized outcrop has escaped their prospecting. Many chromite mines were worked and particularly the Tiebaghi mine which has been, in its time, one of the world's richest. Cobalt was mined and will be exploited again. Pioneers and miners have also mined coal, iron and manganese. They have even searched for oil. Fortunes were made and lost. Generations of New Caledonian people have dreamt about mines and their dream still goes on. Many inhabitants of the "bush" have been, or are still, working in mines. Many have prospected for others or themselves. Families still pass over mining leases to their heirs . Who has not a parent working on a nickel mine ("sur mines") or at the Noumea nickel smelting plant ("au nickel" - SLN, the only smelting company)? Nickel mining and smelting provides, directly or indirectly, the economical resource of more than 10% of the population. In the bush (la brousse) mining companies are often the main employers.

Today, companies are still exploring for gold, chromite, platinum and, again, for oil.

This remarkably rich mining territory is the Grande Terre. Its area is less than 17000 km2.

Mining is a strong feature of the culture of New Caledonians.

Gold

Gold was first found in 1863 in the North at Pouébo, but the main discovery was in Fern Hill near Ouégoa in 1870. This gold deposit was mined from 1873 until 1900 and produced 212 kg of gold.

Other gold prospects have not met the expectations; Galarino from 1877 to 1879 (where was extracted the largest gold nugget ever found in New Caledonia. - 40g), the "Grosses gouttes" near St. Louis (in the South) , 'Queyras" (La Foa), "Edison" (Pouembout), "Honfleur" (¨Poya). Gold occurs also at Nakéty and in other places but again in too small and uneconomical concentrations.

Copper, lead and silver

Copper was found initially in the North ( Diahot valley) near Ouegoa in 1872 by four prospectors English and French. The mining lease was named "Balade". In the same small valley of the Balade creek, two other copper mines "Bruat' and "Murat" were subsequently discovered. In 1864 - 1865 other discoveries followed up in the lower Diahot valley and particularly the "Pilou -Nemou" copper mine, "Mérétrice" (lead-silver) and many other prospects. In Nehoué valley, the "Ao" mine, famous for its azurite minerals, was discovered in 1887.

Mining was done mostly in Balade, Bruat, Pilou-Nemou and Mérétrice. Smelting plants were built at Pam, Dilah and Tao. It is a tumultuous history which starts in 1873 and ends with the bankruptcy of the "Société Minière du Diahot" in 1931. This history is marked, until 1904, by the prominent personality of John Higginson who made a fortune in his mines despite some setbacks. Production totaled 6000 tonnes of copper in Balade, Bruat, Murat and 200 tonnes of copper mattes in Pilou.

Chromium

As early as 1884 chromite ore was mined in Mont Dore (South) and Nakéty (East Coast).

The Tiébaghi (North of Koumac) deposit was found in 1877. Mining started in 1902, initially in an open pit until 1926, then as an underground mine. Mining was ended in 1963. It resumed in 1980 and ended again in 1990 the deposit being exhausted. Overall Tiébaghi has produced 3,3 million tonnes of very rich lumpy chromite (it reached 54% de Cr2O3).

Other deposits, albeit smaller, were discovered and mined in the same ultrabasic massif of Tiébaghi which is particularly chromite rich They are named Chagrin, Fantoche, Vieille Montagne and Bellacoscia.

There also many small chromite deposits in the large southern ultrabasic massif of New Caledonia. Many were mined. They are Marais Kiki, Georges Pile, Alice-Louise, la Madeleine, etc. In the "rivière des Pirogues" valley, large chromite bearing limonite deposits are known and were prospected by BRGM in 1962 and 1975. Another prospecting was carried out in 2000-2002. The resource is large and chromite quality sufficient for sales, but chromite grades would not enable a viable exploitation under current chromite market conditions.

The drawing above shows the Tiebaghi chromite deposit. It comprised two orebodies. On this section (drawing to the left), drawn towards 1960, it can be seen that the ore deposit is still open at depth. This lower part of the orebodies was explored and mined out in the 1980 decade.