Northern Star maintains $225m exploration budget

Northern Star Resources’ (ASX: NST) FY26 exploration program continues to target near-mine growth across production centres, with spend heavily weighted to the miner’s flagship KCGM operations.

The $225m budget is being spent across Northern Star’s three production centres of Kalgoorlie, Yandal and Pogo as well as the newly acquired Hemi development project.

The exploration has yielded significant new discoveries of Hercules (Kalgoorlie), Golden Wonder (Yandal) and Star (Pogo).

Northern Star managing director Stuart Tonkin comments on the company’s exploration updates.

“This update highlights the strong organic growth potential across our global portfolio,” he said.

“At Kalgoorlie, drilling and investment are driving growth, with future options to supply high-margin ore to the expanded Fimiston mill from FY27.

“At Pogo, new drill drives have enabled extensional drilling, while surface programs advance near-mine opportunities, unlocking high priority targets such as Goodpaster, Star and Central Link.

“The integration of our recent strategic acquisition, the Hemi development project, into our gold inventory is underway, with approvals progressing for what is to become our fourth production centre.”

Kalgoorlie

KCGM operations include the Fimiston open pit (Super Pit), Fimiston and Mt Charlotte underground mines and the Mt Percy project.

Drilling has focused on exploration and extensional drilling at the underground operations.

Fimiston South highlights further growth opportunities as exploration drilling over the past 12 months has successfully identified mineralisation up to 800m below existing mineral resources.

New target ‘Golden Goose’ — north of the Charlotte Fault in Mt Charlotte underground — has highlighted the potential for new mineral resources with results of 73.1m @ 1.9g/t and 25.6m @ 4.0g/t.

The Hercules project is focused on the upgrade and expansion of mineral resources outside the existing ore reserve. Infill drilling here has returned thick, high-grade intersections including results of 21.3m @ 6.1g/t and 12.9m @ 9.7g/t.

Yandal

Successful drilling in Jundee has identified new extensions to Deakin, Barton and Plutus areas with narrow high-grade intersections reported outside the current mineral resources.

Surface drilling at Wonder West, within the Thunderbox project region, presents new, strong results from outside the current mineral resource presenting as a new high-grade opportunity.

Pogo, Alaska (US)

At the Star discovery, a thick high-grade zone was confirmed from a small, surface infill program.

Current drilling activities in the Pogo underground mine have focused on testing near-mine extensions opportunities, with strong results returned at East Deep across several high-grade trends.