The 4.3 magnitude earthquake which struck at 2.30am on Good Friday, was felt 30 kilometres away in Orange.

The NSW Mining Inspectorate banned further digging in the caves, forcing the company to instead work through stockpiled ore while it repaired the damage.

Newcrest’s conveyor systems were damaged in the earthquake and testing was needed to ensure ground support would allow further mining.

The damage cost is estimated at $33 million and meant the company would not be able to reach its production targets for the 2016 to 2017 financial year.

On Wednesday, the company began digging again.

“The Cadia team and our business partners have done an excellent job during the remediation and upgrade process,” Newcrest’s CEO Sandeep Biswas said.

“I am particularly pleased to note that this has been achieved to date without a single recordable injury.”

In a statement to the Australian Stock Exchange, the company said “this is a test phase and is the first time ore has been extracted from Cadia East since the seismic event on 14 April 2017”.

“Newcrest has submitted remediation and restart plans for panel cave one and panel cave two to the regulator, which has resulted in the prohibition notice being lifted subject to Newcrest complying with these plans.”

The company said staff had tested crushers and the conveyor system in panel cave two, which had been damaged in the earthquake, with further seismic monitoring to continue.

“The testing phase is expected to take between two to four weeks before Newcrest will be in a position to confirm normal operations for panel cave two,” Newcrest said.

During the shutdown, the Ridgeway sub-level cave was re-opened and is now producing 6000 tonnes of ore each day, Newcrest said this would continue until both panel caves were suitable for full production.

Newcrest said it was still on track to meet its 2017 to 2018 production targets.