Mount Gibson Iron enters trading halt after Koolan Island rockfall

Mount Gibson Iron has ducked into a trading halt following an overnight rockfall in the main pit of its Koolan Island project off the Kimberley coast.

The miner announced on Friday there were no injuries from the incident on a section of the eastern footwall, which had been monitored in advance with continuous radar coverage.

“An exclusion zone is currently in place at the eastern end of main pit and mining is currently suspended pending further evaluation,” it said.

“The Koolan Island seawall was not affected and continues to perform according to design.

“Mount Gibson requests that the trading halt remains in place until the earlier of Mount Gibson making (an announcement) or market open on Tuesday, 21 October 2025.”

Mount Gibson revealed n July is was looking to make the jump from mining iron ore at Koolan to digging for gold in the Northern Territory, after signing up to buy tenements from Northern Star Resources.

The small-scale iron ore miner drew from its substantial reserves of $460 million and stump up $50m in cash to buy Northern Star’s share of the undeveloped Central Tanami gold project.

About 40 million tonnes of high-grade haematite ore has been shipped since Mount Gibson restarted mining at Koolan in 2007.

But with the operation expected to have run its course within the next 12 to 18 months, the cashed-up miner has had to start looking for its next commodity.

Both Mount Gibson and the other half of the Tanami joint venture — a listed company also named Tanami Gold — share the same majority owner in a Hong Kong-listed resources investment group, APAC Resources.