Australian gold output falls after heavy rains lash mines

MELBOURNE, May 25 (Bloomberg): Gold output in Australia, the world's second-biggest producer, fell in the first quarter after a key mining region was inundated by heavy rainfall, industry consultant Surbiton Associates Pty said.

Production was 68 metric tons in the three months through March, about 7 per cent less than in the fourth quarter of 2013, Melbourne-based Surbiton said in a statement. Output was 8 per cent higher than in the same period a year earlier, it said.

A tropical low brought heavy rain to the Goldfields region of Western Australia in mid-February, inundating Regis Resources Ltd. (RRL)'s Duketon site with about 165 millimeters of rain and submerging its Garden Well mine under about 4.7 million cubic meters of water. Full mining may resume in June, the Perth-based producer said last month in a statement.

"As well as mining and haulage problems, wet, sticky ore affects crushers and conveyor belts," Sandra Close, a director at Surbiton, said in the statement. "Heavy rain can also restrict the supply of diesel and other consumables to remote mine sites."