Big Read: Inside Scotland's only commercial gold mine

Sitting in the shadow of Ben Lui, at the top of Cononish Glen, near Tyndrum, is Scotland’s only commercial gold mine.

As I made my On the way way up to Cononish Gold and Silver Mine, which is run by Scotgold Resources, there are no signs of a major industrial project.

The journey along a pothole-ridden road from Dalrigh car park goes takes me through a picturesque landscape.

The River Cononish sits on one side of the windy path, which is flanked by hills across which sheep are scattered over it.

Ben Lui towers in the distance, with its snow-dusted summit scattered peaking sneaking through the clouds. A beautiful waterfall sits at the top of the glen caught my eye.

It is clear to see why this place is popular with walkers but it is not somewhere that would strike you as being the location heart of a multi-million pound mining project.

In fact, there seems to be little sign of the mine at all, apart from a few metal huts in the distance: But there is little noise and no big industrial machines to be seen from the path.

“We didn’t want to have an eyesore, to have a sound that annoys people as they walk up and down that track,” says Scotgold chief executive Phil Day.

“And, most importantly, we didn’t want to use any chemicals that, in any way, shape or form, can damage the water source.” says Scotgold CEO Phil Day.

Scotgold produces gold concentrate – a black powder that still needs to be separated from other materials – and gravity gold, which appears as little nuggets.

The area was used for lead mining in the 1960s, but was not mined for gold until recently after being discovered there in the 1980s.

This is a large reason for the mine’s potential.

“A lot of other mines around the world not only get gold but they get copper and zinc and lead and all these other materials that they don’t want,” said Mr Day. “And it’s very, very hard to separate.” said Mr Day.

“So, in the end, they just choose not to separate sometimes because it just costs more money to separate than it does to it that you would get for return.

“All the gold that we see here is almost untouched.

“In all the different gold booms that you’ve had in Canada and the US and Australia in the 1800s, that sort of gold is almost the equivalent of what we’re getting here.

“It’s pure, so our bags are in very strong demand.

“If you went to Africa, Australia, Canada, the US, it’s just unheard of to make a concentrate that is this clean, or to actually get a gravity like that.”

Scotgold Resources estimate there are 550,000 tons of gold at Cononish and the company aims to be putting out 23,000 ounces each year from 2023 for nine years.

With current gold prices at roughly £1,500 per ounce, this would result in an annual revenue of £34.5 million.

Take away operating costs of £12.5m per year and you have a healthy profit of £22m.

Currently, 90 people are employed at Cononish, but Scotgold aims to double its capacity in the next two years and the company is also exploring other areas nearby.

As Cononish is the only gold mine in the UK, the company has had to recruit employees who have experience mining other materials.

One of these is Paul Smith, a mining superintendent. From York, he started out working in the Selby coalfield in Yorkshire in 1990.

He has since worked in various mines in the north of England, the US and Greenland.

Once I put on my hard hat, high-vis jacket, protective glasses, ear muffs and steel toe-capped wellies on, Mr Smith Paul shows me around the site.

First up is the processing plant. Ear muffs are necessary as the noise is the first thing that strikes me. The second is a saltire hanging from the ceiling.

Here in the processing plant, rocks are brought in from the mine and go through several crushers. After this, they move along a conveyor belt to a ball mill – a large metal drum that works like a coffee grinder. This creates a paste-like material.

The gold is then separated from the waste to make a concentrate. This is the end product.

Stored in large sacks at the far end of the plant, the gold looks more like glittering soot – certainly not something worth £1,500 an ounce.

After examining the product, Mr Smith drives me further up the mountain to the entrance of the mine. We are accompanied by David Bacon, an underground supervisor from Sheffield. I am given a self-rescuer – a device that gives protection against carbon monoxide – and a headlight and in we go.

As we go, I ask the men about their careers. Mr Bacon started his work life at a coal mine in South Yorkshire in 1978. His early career coincided with the Thatcher years, including the miners’ strike in 1984 and 1985.

He only joined Scotgold only this month, in early May, having previously worked on a potash and polyhalite mine in North Yorkshire, where Mr Smith had also worked.

Despite having worked across various types of mining, both men are nostalgic about their early days mining coal. We continue deeper, dodging puddles, which are everywhere, using our headlights to guide us. After more than 10 minutes, we reached a group of five miners.

The miners are using a roof bolter to check that there is no movement in the rock to confirm that the mine is safe. The men laughed and joked with each other as they worked. There is an evident camaraderie among them.

The miners work hard. Their shifts are 12 hours long and they work for seven days or seven nights before having seven days off. They stay at a hotel in Tyndrum while they are on shiftsite.

Mr Smith Paul describes the miners as “a diverse group.” Some of them hail from as far afield as South Africa, while there are others from Poland, the north of England and different parts of Scotland. Across the site as a whole, 60 per cent of the workers are Scottish.

One of these is Paul Duncan, from Moodiesburn, North Lanarkshire. In his early 20s, Mr Duncan Paul joined Scotgold a few months previously from Ford Motor Company.

He said: “The shifts are difficult because they’re 12 hours long. It’s good [working here] but it takes a bit of getting used to. It’s hard being away from your family but you get used to it.”

It is only when we are leaving the mine that I realise how deep we had gone into the mountain.

The tunnel is one kilometre long, but it seems far longerto go on forever. Eventually we see saw the light, and it takes took me a moment to adjust to its brightness.

We emerge from the darkness and looked down Glen Coninish: the mountains, the waterfall, the river. I imagine they are that it would be a wonderful sight after a gruelling 12-hour shift.

As we headed in the car back down the hill, I asked Mr Smith Paul what had attracted him to mining.

“I know it sounds cliche,” he laughs, “but it’s a family tradition which I wanted to carry on. My whole family were miners.

“I feel lucky that I can keep mining. But if you’d told me a year ago that I’d be working in a gold mine I wouldn’t have believed you.”

I make the three-mile journey through idyllic countryside back to the car park before leaving the mine area. It may be Scotland’s only commercial gold mine but coal But this may not be the case for long.

Scotgold’s work has attracted drawn the attention of other investors who are looking for a piece of the action.

Mr Day said he believes this that there could lead to be a new gold rush, as there is a whole belt of the metal from the north-east to the west coast which isare rife ripe for exploration.

“A very famous investor came and saw me and we [spoke about the Cononish project]. Six months later, he put in £100m at a site nearby. So, he obviously knows something, doesn’t he?”

As Scotland aims to respond to climate change, the transition away from fossil fuels could make gold mining attractive from an environmental standpoint.

Scotgold is very much focused on its environmental impact, partly due to restrictions placed on it due to its location in a national park. The chemicals it uses used are highly diluted and the company has plans to become carbon neutral by using hydropower and electric cars.

As environmental concerns become more crucial to economic policy, the black gold in Scotland’s mountains could soon replace the black gold in the North Sea as we look .

Scotland will be looking for other industries to replace North Sea oil, which makes up 5% of the country’s GDP.

The Scottish National Party will also be keen to find a replacement, as oil has been a fundamental part of its economic case for independence.

When I ask him if he believes gold could replace oil, Mr Day says: “Definitely – from an employment perspective [gold could replace oil].” said Mr Day.

“If we keep growing and as I feel the plans that we have, we will be a very good employer for people in Scotland. So we will keep people away from oil.”