The head of Queensland’s largest gold producer has listed humility and safety as the most important traits of successful mid-tier miners.

Evolution Mining chief executive officer Jake Klein (pictured above) made his address to this year’s Diggers and Dealers in Kalgoorlie this week, saying gold miners needed to keep their feet on the ground in order to deliver value to shareholders.

Junior miners getting carried away in bullish gold markets was common Mr Klein said. Gold was in record territory yesterday peaking at more than $A2,230/ounce.

Tom Cruise’s ‘Show me the money’ clip out of his Jerry Maguire film was applied to shareholders while officeholders needed to keep a straight head, in the current bullish climate, Mr Klein said.

Mid-tier gold miners delivered the greatest value for shareholders and Evolution was one of the lowest cost producers in the world, he said.

In the face of the hype Mr Klein said Evolution was looking to add value out of a set number of low-cost operations acquired in more temperate economic conditions.

Evolution bought the gold production from Ernest Henry mine along with two other Australian assets more than five years ago when the gold price was $A1600/oz.

But no reality was more emphatic for Evolution than the number of fatalities that occurred in the last 12 months.

There have been six deaths on Queensland coal mines and quarries.

Mr Klein the greatest priority of the industry was safety and while the industry was going through a ‘reset’ at the moment, there was more to do.