The budding Waikaia Gold project is on course to move on to its site in October.

It intends to extract 20,000 ounces of gold from the floodplain of the Waikaia River and was given the go-ahead in February.

Director Warren Batt said the gold plant was being designed and built by engineers in Greymouth and Nelson.

"We are making steady progress – we expect to be on the ground in October, in spring, and we'd expect to be commencing full-scale production in the first quarter of next year," Mr Batt said.

Sorting out finance for the project had been affected by the tight economic environment, Mr Batt said, but the gold price had held up well considering the turmoil in Europe.

Waikaia Gold's operation would involve a pit moving 80 metres a month down old river courses on the flood plain, reaching deposits that goldminers at the turn of the century – when Waikaia was the scene of a gold rush – did not have the technology to access.

The gravel and earth dug out from in front of the pit – about 2.2 million cubic metres a year – would fill in the land behind it, restoring the paddocks.

The operation is expected to employ about 40 people.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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