That has delivered substantial cost savings, and the achievement of becoming the world\u2019s first \u201cnet zero\u201d gold mine. But in the context of Donald Trump\u2019s war in the Middle East, and the fossil fuel supply crisis it has caused, it is now delivering even bigger rewards.<\/p>\n
In an update on its March quarter operations, released to the ASX on Wednesday, Bellevue Gold said its power station continues to operate with industry leading renewable energy rates of around 90 per cent in March.<\/p>\n
\u201cBellevue\u2019s direct exposure to diesel costs continues to be one of the lowest in the sector,\u201d it said. \u201cDiesel purchases represented around 1.3 per cent of Total Project Costs during the financial year to 28 February 2026. Bellevue is not currently impacted by any diesel supply issues.\u201d<\/p>\n
That 1.3 per cent is even lower than the four to five per cent claimed by another leading miner with a high share of renewables on its off-grid power system, Liontown Resources.<\/p>\n
That company, one of the main lithium plays by Australia\u2019s richest person Gina Rinehart, a vocal opponent of renewables, sources more than 80 per cent of its power needs at its new Kathleen Valley mine from its combined wind, solar and battery system.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are 80% renewable,\u201d Liontown CEO Tony Ottaviano said in March an analyst briefing marking its December half results.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat gives us a very big, big advantage. So most of our power is generated by renewable sources. So on average, our total diesel cost is about 4% to 5% of our overall cost base. So it\u2019s not a significant amount. So we\u2019re pretty confident from that perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n
A recent report by brokers Bell Potter estimated that diesel can represent 15 per cent of total costs for an off grid mine, even before the recent 50 per cent spike in costs to around $3 a litre.<\/p>\n
Bellevue\u2019s off-grid power system, delivered by Zenith Energy, features four wind turbines with a combined capacity of 24 MW, a 27 MW solar farm, a battery energy storage system (BESS) of 15 MW\/33-megawatt-hours (MWh), as well as 24 MW of thermal generation.<\/p>\n
Liontown\u2019s system at Kathleen Valley \u2013 also delivered by Zenith Energy \u2013 features 30 megawatts (MW) of wind capacity, 17 MW of solar and a 17 MW, 19 MWh battery, and was commissioned last year.<\/p>\n
See also: \u201cWe are 80 pct renewable:\u201d Wind and solar shield Gina Rinehart\u2019s big lithium play from fossil fuel crisis<\/a><\/p>\n If you would like to join more than 29,000 others and get the latest clean energy news delivered straight to your inbox, for free, please\u00a0click here to subscribe to our free daily newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n If you wish to support independent media, and accurate information, please consider making a one off donation or becoming a regular supporter of Renew Economy. Please click here. Your support is invaluable.<\/a><\/p>\n Giles Parkinson is founder and editor-in-chief of Renew Economy<\/a>, and founder and editor of its EV-focused sister site The Driven<\/a>. He is the co-host of the weekly Energy Insiders Podcast<\/a>. Giles has been a journalist for more than 40 years and is a former deputy editor of the Australian Financial Review. You can find him on LinkedIn and on Twitter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The new Bellevue gold mine operating in a remote, off-grid region of Western Australia says it has operated…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":600161,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[64,63,75,128],"class_list":["post-600160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=600160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/600161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=600160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=600160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=600160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1775916391_989_a744e55263b8496e46485bfbaa45b4ff7538a517cfd6f6650798459db78775d2.jpeg\")
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