Update 3 July 2025
Santana Minerals Ltd have announced that their wholly owned subsidiary Matakanui Gold Ltd has entered into a binding agreement to acquire outright Ardgour Station land which has competing land uses over part of their Bendigo-Ophir Gold Project.
The stages acquisition is for a total quantum of NZ$25 million with salient points being:
1. The transaction is subject to the normal New Zealand Overseas Investment Office approval.
2. A non-refundable deposit of NZ$2 million.
3. The total acquisition includes four land records of title covering 2,880 hectares of land (subject to survey) including all irrigable lands, water rights and infrastructure.
4. The acquisition of Ardgour Station land will result in the nullification of a 1% gross production royalty over approximately half of the presently defined RAS orebody and the RAS, CIT and SRX deposits down plunge potential.
Part of the transaction, worth $5m, will be settled in shares of Santana Minerals Ltd and settlement is contingent on obtaining project consents under the Fast Track Approvals Act.
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June 2025
A humongous open-cast gold mine has been proposed by Santana Minerals Ltd for the Dunstan Mountains region above the Clutha River in New Zealand’s magnificent Central Otago.
New Zealand registered Santana Minerals Ltd is essentially a corporate off-shoot of Santana Minerals Ltd based in Brisbane. It is presently a loss-making company which claims to be engaged in the exploration and evaluation of gold and silver properties in New Zealand, Cambodia and Mexico. The directors of their NZ operation are; Frederick Bunting (Whangaparāoa, NZ), Peter Cook (Chairman – Western Australia), Emma Scotney (Western Australia), Samuel Smith (Western Australia), Damian Spring (C.E.O. – Arrowtown, NZ).
Santana Minerals’ Bendigo-Ophir proposed project would create an open pit mine and an underground gold mine within Bendigo and Ardgour farming stations. Their application for prospecting consent will cover an area of 251 sq.km. all within what has been designated an Outstanding Natural Landscape.
Apparently leasing arrangements have been agreed upon with the owners of both private properties.
An open-cast mining operation in another part of New Zealand
Santana Minerals expects that mining operations would eventually extend from the upper Clutha Basin over Thomsons Saddle to Ophir, on the Manuherikia Plain.
CEO Damien Spring is reported to have said his company trumpets big sums for his small band of Australian miners. He has also said that his company has never previously built or operated a mine.
Santana’s proposed New Zealand open-cast mine would require the topography to be excavated to initially form an open pit 1000 meters long x 850 meters wide and 200 meters deep. Excavated rock would be crushed to dust and immersed in large quantities of a cyanide solution in order to leach out any lurking gold.
Part of the planned mining operation would require a huge tailings dam with a capacity equivalent to 10,000 Olympic swimming pools of toxic nastiness.
Another example of open-cast mining in New Zealand
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The New Zealand Government’s Fast Track Approvals legislation allows for approved projects to proceed through the Resource Consent application process within a six-month time-frame.
New Zealand First MP Hon Shane Jones is one of the designated approving Ministers and he has made it clear that his attitude to mining is “Dig Baby Dig!”.
The internationally recognised Central Otago’s otherwise pristine environment continues to be subject to attack from mining operations, irrigation systems, huge dairy farms, solar farms, wind generation farms and forestry plantations...
The site of the proposed Bendigo-Ophir gold project