KO Gold chief executive Greg Isenor said its permits could have the same potential for discovery as Santana Minerals’ $5 billion Bendigo-Ophir gold project.
"We’re very optimistic.
"We see all the indicators that would show that we could be very successful."
It comes as fresh applications to mine for gold in Central Otago continue to flood in, with demand so hot for exploration rights on a large slice of land next to Oceana-Gold’s Macraes gold mine that a competitive bidding process has opened.
KO Gold announced yesterday it was selling a stake in the company of up to $C2.24 million ($NZ2.79m) to partly fund ongoing exploration and drilling programmes in Otago’s gold district.
The company has four wholly owned prospecting and exploration permits in the area, along with two exploration permits under option, amounting to a combined land package of about 972sq km.
Mr Isenor said drilling to date had only been at its Smylers permit — not yet at its Carrick, Hyde or Glenpark sites — where gold had been intersected in most of the drill holes.
"All the properties show great potential. There’s great potential in the Otago and that’s certainly been identified by the beautiful results of Santana," Mr Isenor said.
"We see the same potential on our permits and certainly some other operators in the Otago have done the same thing.
"There’s been quite a rush to acquire other permits by other companies."
"Within a couple of months we’d like to be drilling.
"We need landowner permissions, we need a drilling contractor, we have to sign drilling contracts and there’s some staffing we require too to allow us to complete drilling."
KO Gold had completed "successful financing", which would allow it to drill and complete drilling requirements on the permits, Mr Isenor said.
"Everything points to success.
"We're very encouraged by what we see to date," Mr Isenor said.
Santana Minerals, whose fast-track application was accepted by the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) in November, announced last week recent drilling had unlocked a "major new extension" to the north of its Rise and Shine (RAS) deposit.
"In parallel to the discovery, Santana has advanced an application with New Zealand Petroleum and Minerals for additional exploration tenure north of the existing permit boundary."
Australian company CGM (NZ) Pty Ltd applied in October for two two-year mineral-prospecting permits on land northwest of Dunedin.
Lammer Resources Ltd applied in November for a five-year exploration permit on land where it had been granted prospecting permit more than four years ago.
An open-contest round for land north of Dunedin, near Macraes, is scheduled to close later this month.
