A big number attached to a few drill holes
Australian-listed New Age Exploration told the ASX this week it has found shear-hosted gold mineralisation at its Bella prospect within the Lammerlaw Gold-Antimony Project, roughly 70km west of Dunedin near Lake Mahinerangi. CEO Kirby Johnson says the deposit could extend more than 5km laterally through rock up to 100m thick, carrying gold, antimony and tungsten.
The $4 billion figure is doing a lot of work. Johnson’s own maths spells out the assumptions: “If you find a million ounces of gold at US$4000 an ounce, these days gold has become incredibly valuable. Then that can easily translate into $4 billion and so that’s definitely our target.” That is an in-ground metal value on a hoped-for deposit, not a JORC-compliant resource, not a reserve, and not a project valuation. The company is only a few drill holes in and, by Johnson’s own account, “four or five years before we get to a stage of saying we’ve got a deposit that could be turned into a mine and starting to seek mining approvals.”
So treat the number as an aspiration. What matters more for New Zealand business is why an offshore company is drilling here at all.
The line that should interest policymakers
Johnson was blunt that the government’s consenting reset is a competitive draw. “We really like the fast-track process and we give credit to the New Zealand government,” he told RNZ, calling it “a key attraction for us to be working in New Zealand” and a way to “sort through issues quickly, rather than bypass or sidestep them.”
That is a direct data point in a live argument. In 2024, an Environmental Defence Society director with mining expertise argued in Newsroom that geology, not policy, decides where miners go: “If a country has attractive exploration targets, then the mining companies will gravitate towards it, even if its policy settings are difficult.” New Age Exploration citing the fast-track regime, alongside the geology, is evidence the reset is changing behaviour. The Fast-track Approvals Act, passed in late 2024, was designed to do exactly this.
The rush is already here
Lammerlaw is one point in a much larger surge. NZPAM’s 2025 permitting data recorded 551 permit applications, up from 450 in 2024, with 178 new permits granted and 163 targeting gold. Otago picked up 36 new gold permits, second only to the West Coast. A Newsroom investigation in February 2026 found close to a million hectares across Otago pegged by mining companies, covering farms, forestry blocks and two towns.
Record prices are the engine. Mining Weekly reported in June 2026 that New Zealand gold output is on track to double by the mid-2030s to its highest level in three decades. For context, in 2022 the country produced 214,582 ounces worth NZ$610 million. The government’s 2025 Minerals Strategy targets doubling mineral export value to NZ$3 billion by 2035.
Santana is the test everyone is watching
The most advanced new project shows what New Age Exploration will eventually face. Santana Minerals’ Rise and Shine mine in Central Otago holds at least 1.24 million ounces of extractable gold, described as the biggest find in four decades, with a projected 70% profit margin and 350 jobs at a median wage of $140,000. Resources Minister Shane Jones says it would add an average NZ$360 million a year to GDP.
Yet its fast-track application has been paused, with the company asked whether it would cover the cost of a catastrophic failure. That is what “streamlined” consenting looks like under pressure, and it is the outcome every explorer behind Santana is reading closely.
Where the value actually lands
The sharpest question for a business audience is not whether the gold is there, but how much of its value stays here. In-ground metal value, production value and value retained in New Zealand are three very different numbers. Johnson’s pitch is that “mining jobs are good jobs, high-paid jobs and profits, tax, they all stay in New Zealand.” The gross value of New Zealand gold mined since the 1860s already exceeds NZ$145 billion at current prices. How much of the next boom is captured beyond wages and royalties is a question neither the Minerals Strategy nor the fast-track process answers.
This is a decade-plus story. Four to five years to a permit application, then consent, then construction. The real test is not whether Lammerlaw becomes a mine, but whether the policy settings that attracted the drill rig are still in place, and still working, when the moment of decision finally arrives.
Sources
- Australian mining firm eyes $4 billion prize after Otago gold find (2026-07-06)
- ‘Similar to Macraes’: Miner says $4b in gold discovered near Dunedin (2026-07-02)
- The debate over Central Otago’s enormous, controversial new gold mine, explained (2026-04-23)
- Farms pegged out from under owners’ feet in modern day gold rush (2026-02-25)
- ‘Pure’ New Zealand chases gold as record prices burnish allure (2026-06-23)
- Minerals permitting data for 2025 shows growing momentum (2026-02-11)
- A Minerals Strategy for New Zealand to 2040 (2025-01-01)
- The mineral potential of New Zealand report, 2024 (2024-08-29)
- The mineral potential of New Zealand – Part 1 (2024-07-01)
- Having a minerals strategy is one thing, being competitive is another (2024-07-26)