Reviewed September 2026 against Water Corporation (Government of Western Australia), Gold Fields operator reporting, and the Minerals Council of Australia.

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St Ives Gold Mine: Production, Water Use, and Well Drilling Explained

St Ives Gold Mine, operated by Gold Fields near Kambalda in Western Australia’s Goldfields region, produced 369,600 ounces of gold in the 2025 reporting year — a 12% year-on-year increase, according to operator results reported by Australian Mining. The mine draws water from a mix of scheme supply and on-site bores, processes roughly 600,000 litres of water per day through its mill, and has already cut scheme water consumption by 50% between 2018 and 2022 under efficiency upgrades tracked by Water Corporation, the Western Australian government utility.

This page exists to answer the specific questions people search around St Ives: how much gold it produces, how water and gold relate at the site, what “well drilling” and “borehole drilling” near St Ives actually refers to, and where the mine’s sustainability numbers stand against public targets. Every figure below carries a source and a date, plus a note on where to check for a more current number when one is published.

St Ives Gold Mine: Location, Output, and Ownership

Goldfields St Ives Gold Mine sits in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia, just south of Lake Lefroy and the Kambalda township, roughly 630 km east of Perth. Gold Fields Limited, the Johannesburg-headquartered operator, runs St Ives as a mix of open-pit and underground operations feeding a central processing mill.

• ✔ Operator: Gold Fields Limited
• ✔ Location: Goldfields-Esperance region, Western Australia, near Kambalda
• ✔ 2025 production: 369,600 ounces, up 12% year-on-year (Australian Mining, reporting Gold Fields’ 2025 operator results)
• ✔ Operation type: Multiple open pits plus underground mining, centralised mill
• ✔ Neighbouring land uses: Pastoral leases, remnant native vegetation, and other Goldfields mining tenements

At a spot price averaging around $4,370 per troy ounce in September 2026 (Trading Economics), 369,600 ounces of annual output translates to roughly $1.6 billion in contained gold value at that single month’s price — useful for scale, not as a revenue figure, since realised prices, hedging, and byproduct credits all shift the actual number quarter to quarter. For the current spot price, check Trading Economics’ gold commodity page directly, since it updates intraday.

Gold From Water: What the Phrase Actually Means at St Ives

People searching “gold from water” are usually looking for one of two things: literal gold-extraction-from-water technology, or how much water a gold mine like St Ives actually consumes per ounce produced. St Ives is not a direct-extraction-from-seawater or brine operation — it is a conventional open-pit and underground gold mine where water is the processing medium, not the source of the metal.

The water-per-ounce relationship is the useful number here. The global benchmark for water consumed per troy ounce of gold mined sits at approximately 21,000 litres per ounce, based on 2022 benchmarking by Skarn Associates in partnership with CSIRO. Applied to St Ives’ 369,600-ounce 2025 output, that benchmark alone would imply roughly 7.76 billion litres (7.76 GL) of water intensity across the full ounce count — a ceiling figure, not St Ives’ actual site consumption, since the mine’s own efficiency programme has already cut scheme water draw by half against its 2018 baseline.

St Ives’ own reported figure is more concrete: the mill processes about 600,000 litres of water per day, per Water Corporation’s 2020-2021 case study of the site. That is a mill throughput number, not a per-ounce figure, and the two should not be conflated — throughput includes recycled water passing through the circuit multiple times, while the Skarn/CSIRO benchmark measures net fresh water consumed per ounce across the industry.

Water Well and Borehole Drilling Around St Ives

Searches for “water well drilling St Ives,” “well drilling St Ives,” and “water borehole drilling St Ives” typically come from two different audiences: mining and water-services contractors looking for work scope near the Goldfields operation, and pastoral or rural landholders in the Kambalda area seeking bore water for stock or domestic use. St Ives itself relies on a combination of scheme water (supplied via Water Corporation infrastructure) and site groundwater bores feeding its process circuit — the same category of infrastructure a rural borehole driller would install and maintain, just at industrial scale and under a mining water licence rather than a domestic one.

Western Australia’s Goldfields region sits in a semi-arid zone where groundwater salinity and depth vary significantly across even short distances — a legacy of the ancient, weathered landscape around Lake Lefroy. That is precisely why St Ives’ 50% reduction in scheme water consumption (2018-2022, Water Corporation) and its 78% efficiency gain in cyanide destruct pump water use over the same period matter beyond the mine’s own fence line: every litre a large operator does not draw from scheme or groundwater supply is a litre that remains available to the broader regional supply, including the bores serving pastoral leases and smaller operations nearby.

For anyone actually commissioning well or borehole drilling in the Kambalda–St Ives area — whether for a pastoral property, an exploration camp, or a small mining tenement — the practical checklist is:

1. Confirm groundwater licensing requirements with the WA Department of Water and Environmental Regulation before drilling, since groundwater allocation in the Goldfields is actively managed.
2. Test salinity before committing to a bore — Goldfields groundwater ranges from fresh to hypersaline within short distances, and St Ives’ own operations use a mix of qualities matched to specific process needs.
3. Check proximity to existing mine dewatering — active open-pit and underground dewatering at operations like St Ives can affect the water table and yield of nearby bores.
4. Budget for a hydrogeological assessment rather than drilling speculatively, given the variability described above.

This site does not publish current commercial drilling rates or contractor listings; if you need a specific quote for drilling near St Ives, that starts with a licensed WA driller or hydrogeological consultant, not with a mining company’s public sustainability reporting.

Water Stewardship: Recycling, Reduction, and 2030 Targets

St Ives’ water programme, as documented by Water Corporation’s business case study, rests on three published figures, all against a 2018 baseline:

• 📊 50% reduction in scheme water consumption, achieved 2018–2022
• 💧 78% efficiency gain in cyanide destruct pump water use, achieved 2020–2022
• 🎯 45% freshwater reduction target by 2030 (against the 2018 baseline)
• 🎯 80% water recycling or reuse target by 2030

Note what is and is not published here: Water Corporation’s case study confirms the 2018–2022 achievements and the 2030 targets, but does not report an interim 2025 actual recycling rate. If you need the current figure rather than the 2030 goal, the source to check is Gold Fields’ own sustainability reporting alongside Water Corporation’s St Ives case study page, which the utility updates as part of its annual sustainability reporting cycle.

Separately, the mine is targeting 70% renewable energy supply across its operations once its current renewable energy project is complete, per Gold Fields’ strategic reporting covered by Discovery Alert. No specific commissioning month or quarter has been published for that project as of this review; check Gold Fields’ quarterly investor updates, typically released in April, August, and November for the prior quarter, for a firm completion date.

Key Infrastructure Behind the Numbers

• 🌎 Water Treatment & Reuse: Recycled process water reduces both freshwater demand and pressure on regional water tables shared with pastoral leases.
• 🌱 Progressive Rehabilitation: Zone-based rehabilitation prioritises native vegetation recovery and erosion control as pits and waste dumps reach end-of-life.
• 🌿 Environmental Monitoring: Ongoing sediment and water-quality monitoring supports both compliance and the 2030 targets above.

Land Rehabilitation and Agricultural Interfaces

St Ives’ tailings and waste rock containment infrastructure is engineered to limit sediment and contaminant movement into surrounding pastoral land and any downstream water bodies near Lake Lefroy. The practical concerns for adjacent land users mirror those at any large open-pit operation in a semi-arid zone:

1. Soil Health & Dust Control: Tailings containment and dust suppression reduce risk to pasture condition on neighbouring leases.
2. Stable Water Tables: Reduced freshwater withdrawal (the 50% scheme-water cut noted above) lowers competing pressure on shared groundwater.
3. Progressive Rehabilitation: Mined areas are contoured, topsoil is replaced, and native species are reseeded as operations move through each zone, aiming to return land to pastoral or conservation use once mining in that area ends.
4. Infrastructure Routing: Roads, power lines and water pipelines built to service St Ives are sited to avoid disrupting grazing and existing station access where possible.

Common Mistake: Treating a single rehabilitation hectare count as static. Rehabilitation at an active mine like St Ives is progressive and ongoing — some ground is disturbed for new pits or dumps in the same period other ground is being revegetated. This site does not have a current, dated hectare figure for rehabilitated land at St Ives from the sources in this review; for a current figure, consult Gold Fields’ annual sustainability report, which discloses rehabilitation area by reporting year.

St Ives in the Western Australian and National Gold Picture

St Ives’ 369,600 ounces in 2025 sits inside a much larger production base. Western Australia’s Goldfields region produced 209 tonnes of gold in the 2025 reporting year, according to Surbiton Associates figures reported by Kitco News. Over the twelve months to Q1 2026, Western Australia’s total gold output reached 235 tonnes — 71% of Australia’s national production, per mining statistical sources. Australia as a whole produced 293.2 tonnes in the 2025 reporting year, ranking third globally, with gold export earnings reaching $47 billion for the 2024–25 financial year according to the Minerals Council of Australia.

Put simply: St Ives’ 369,600 ounces (approximately 11.5 tonnes) represents a small but consistent single-mine contribution to a Goldfields region producing 209–235 tonnes annually, inside a national industry now approaching Australia’s second-largest export earner status.

For readers tracking these figures over time: Surbiton Associates and the Minerals Council of Australia both publish updated national and state gold production figures on a rolling basis, generally aligned to Australian financial-year (July–June) and calendar-quarter reporting. Check Kitco’s coverage of Surbiton Associates’ Australian gold production data and the Minerals Council of Australia’s gold export analysis for the current release.

Satellite-Based Mineral Discovery Near Active Mines

Operations like St Ives sit inside broader exploration districts, where identifying new targets without unnecessary ground disturbance matters both economically and environmentally. Satellite-driven exploration screens large tenement areas for alteration halos, structural targets, and geological patterns before committing to ground surveys or drilling.

• 🛰️ Satellite-Driven Exploration: Screens large regions quickly, focusing follow-up ground work on the most promising targets rather than blanket surveys.
• ⚠ Reduced Early-Stage Disturbance: Fewer speculative ground campaigns means less disruption to pastoral and conservation land bordering active mines.
• 📊 Structured Targeting: Combines alteration mapping and structural interpretation to support drilling decisions with an evidence trail.

For those seeking this technology directly, Farmonaut’s satellite-based mineral detection platform delivers AI-assisted, satellite-driven mapping for gold and other mineral discovery, aimed at reducing upfront field costs during early-stage exploration.

Farmonaut’s Role in Sustainable Mineral Exploration

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Water Recycling Savings Calculator

Estimate how much fresh water a recycling-rate improvement could save at a mill of any given throughput, using St Ives’ own 600,000 litres/day mill figure as the default starting point.

Comparative Water and Land Data Table

Figures above are pulled directly from the sources cited; none are estimated or interpolated. Where a period is a reporting year rather than a calendar year, that is noted so the numbers can be compared correctly against future updates.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much gold does St Ives Gold Mine produce?

St Ives produced 369,600 ounces of gold in the 2025 reporting year, a 12% increase on the prior year, according to Gold Fields' operator results reported by Australian Mining. For the current figure, check Gold Fields' quarterly investor releases (typically April, August, and November).

Is St Ives the same as Goldfields St Ives?

Yes — "Goldfields St Ives" and "St Ives Goldfields" both refer to the same operation: the St Ives Gold Mine operated by Gold Fields Limited in Western Australia's Goldfields region near Kambalda.

How much water does St Ives use, and what does "gold from water" mean here?

St Ives' mill processed approximately 600,000 litres of water per day as of Water Corporation's 2020-2021 case study, with 50% less scheme water drawn than in 2018. St Ives is not a literal gold-from-seawater operation — "gold from water" in this context refers to the water intensity of conventional gold processing, benchmarked globally at around 21,000 litres per ounce (Skarn Associates/CSIRO, 2022).

What is involved in water well or borehole drilling near St Ives?

Groundwater in the Kambalda-Goldfields area varies significantly in salinity and depth over short distances. Anyone drilling a well or borehole near St Ives should confirm licensing with WA's Department of Water and Environmental Regulation, test salinity before committing, and check proximity to active mine dewatering, which can affect nearby bore yield.

What are St Ives' water sustainability targets?

Gold Fields and Water Corporation report a target of 45% freshwater reduction against a 2018 baseline and 80% water recycling or reuse, both by 2030. Interim achievements to 2022 include a 50% cut in scheme water consumption and a 78% efficiency gain in cyanide destruct pump water use.

Where can I access Farmonaut's satellite mineral detection platform?

You can learn about and request access to Farmonaut's Satellite-Based Mineral Detection platform, which supports rapid, high-coverage mineral intelligence for exploration near active mining districts like the Goldfields.

Conclusion

St Ives Gold Mine is a large, active Gold Fields operation in Western Australia's Goldfields region that produced 369,600 ounces in the 2025 reporting year while running a published, dated water-efficiency programme: a 50% cut in scheme water consumption and a 78% gain in cyanide destruct pump efficiency between 2018 and 2022, against 2030 targets of 45% freshwater reduction and 80% recycling or reuse. Regional context places the mine inside a Goldfields district producing 209 tonnes and a Western Australian total of 235 tonnes (71% of Australia's national output), within a national industry that earned $47 billion in gold exports in FY 2024-25.

None of these figures are static. Production, water-recycling rates, and renewable-energy progress all update on Gold Fields' quarterly and annual reporting cycle, and Water Corporation refreshes its business case studies as part of its own annual sustainability reporting. The durable method here — checking mill throughput against recycling percentage, and per-ounce water intensity against the Skarn Associates/CSIRO benchmark — stays valid regardless of which year's numbers you're checking it against.

• ✔ 369,600 oz produced in 2025, +12% year-on-year
• ✔ 50% scheme water cut achieved 2018-2022, targeting 45% freshwater reduction and 80% recycling by 2030
• ✔ 209-235 tonnes of regional and state gold production for context
• ✔ Satellite-driven mineral discovery available for exploration near active Goldfields operations

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