Oceana is on a drive to extend its mine-life prospects at both its Macraes and West Coast Reefton sites as it benefits from a year of stellar share price gains.
This coincides with a successful capital raising of more than $100 million which rids the company of its forward contract hedge book; allowing it to make the most of a surge in global gold spot prices.
Shares in Oceana, which hit an all-time high of $4.65 last month, had slipped below $4 but were again trading slightly above $4 yesterday after the positive test drilling results.
Oceana has forecast its mine life at present is "at least six years" - to 2016.
Oceana has recently been underground test drilling outside the boundary line of its existing Frasers underground mine at Macraes, which is forecast to deliver up to 70,000 ounces of gold this calendar year, and the latest assay results from 20 diamond drill test holes were "very encouraging", according to chief executive Paul Bibby in a statement.
"As we continue to expand the infill drilling programme outwards we expect this to further improve the confidence of the resource and lead to increased mine life," Mr Bibby said.
Among the 20 assays were 5m of drill samples at 5.55 grams of gold per tonne (g/t) 5m at 3.17 g/t, 11m at 2.72 g/t, 6m at 2.71 g/t and 5.5m at 2.96 g/t.
The latest results were the first indication of a "new, possible area of mineralisation" which may represent one or more lodes similar to the Panel 2 Deeps announced last year.
"Consequently we will continue with this underground [test drilling] programme to test for further extensions," Mr Bibby said.
Frasers underground, which cost $NZ74.3 million and was commissioned in January 2008, was estimated at last December to have a further three-year lifespan, but this was dependent on further drill testing results.
Last calendar year Oceana delivered a record 300,391 ounces of gold and expects a slight downturn this year to between 270,000-300,000oz as it works through lower grade ore. Frasers underground is expected to contribute 55,000-65,000oz per year.
