Oceana Gold will pursue its exploration of the historic Birthday Reef at the Blackwater mine near Reefton, which could hugely boost its West Coast gold production.
Blackwater mine became Reefton's largest yielder of gold, producing 740,000oz from 1.6 million tonnes of ore at a remarkable 14.6 grammes of gold per tonne of ore removed (g/t), before its closure in 1951 following a shaft collapse.
Overall, the Reefton field delivered 2 million oz.
The latest holes, following four drilled earlier this year, were 11m apart with both just over 1620m in length when hitting the reef, returning respectively 15.65 g/t at an estimated width of 500mm, and 85.2 g/t over 1m, while the final hole depth of 1641m is possibly the longest hole drilled for gold in the country.
The intercepted gold was at depths 680m vertically below the previous miners' old workings.
Oceana chief executive Mick Wilkes said the results "uncovered remarkable continuity" in the reef to give "strong confidence" the main ore-body continued below the old workings. The old workings historically contained about 1000oz of gold per vertical metre of the reef.
With the results increasing the known extent of gold, Oceana is evaluating several mining options in order to target a production rate of 50,000oz to 60,000oz; with the study outcome known by mid-2013.
Birthday Reef, near the abandoned mining township of Waiutu, is 37km by road from Reefton and 15km from Oceana's Globe-Progress open-cast mine.
While still targeting 230,000oz to 250,000oz of gold from its New Zealand operations this calendar year, last year the Globe Progress mine yielded 77,648oz at 1.67g/t.
