Bellevue Gold will spend A$25-30 million on FY27 exploration after its Mineral Resource and Ore Reserve declined year on year, while a slower Barminco ramp-up is expected to cut September-quarter production by 3,000-4,000 ounces. High-grade Deacon North drilling and deeper targets offer a possible longer-term counterweight.
- FY27 exploration budget increased to A$25-30 million
- Deacon North returns up to 9.3m at 62.1g/t gold
- Mineral Resource falls to 2.7Moz at 8.6g/t
- Ore Reserve declines to 1.0Moz at 4.5g/t
- September-quarter production expected 3,000-4,000oz lower
Bellevue raises exploration spending as reserves contract
Bellevue Gold Limited (ASX:BGL) is increasing its exploration push just as the numbers underpinning the mine have moved lower. The company will lift its FY27 exploration budget to A$25-30 million and redirect more underground drilling towards resource definition and extensions, after reporting a Mineral Resource of 2.7 million ounces at 8.6 grams per tonne gold and an Ore Reserve of 1.0 million ounces at 4.5g/t.
Those figures compare with 3.1Moz at 8.9g/t for the previous Mineral Resource and 1.3Moz at 4.7g/t for the previous Ore Reserve. Bellevue attributes the changes to roughly 154,000 ounces of mined depletion, model changes and variations revealed by closer-spaced drilling. Excluding production depletion, the company says the net movement was approximately 6% for the Resource and 8% for the Reserve, which its board does not regard as material under ASX Listing Rule 5.8.
Deacon North supplies high-grade drilling momentum
The growth case rests partly on a shift away from drilling almost exclusively for grade control. Bellevue has added an underground rig and plans to devote about 30% of total underground drilling metres to resource definition and exploration in FY27, with work aimed at extending existing lodes and identifying future mining areas.
Deacon North is the most immediate bright spot. Infill drilling has defined high-grade plunging shoots that have been incorporated into mine planning, including intersections of 9.3 metres at 62.1g/t gold, 8.9m at 31.0g/t and 4.6m at 50.3g/t. Bellevue says the shoots resemble those already defined and mined at Deacon Main, although it also cautions that the selected intersections are not representative of all results and that further mine-definition drilling is required.
New drilling fronts extend beyond the current mine plan
Development of the Southern Belle Decline has opened underground drill platforms for testing Tribune South and the Southern Belle position beneath Lake Miranda. Results reported to date include 3.5m at 44.96g/t gold, while Bellevue says the Tribune South target could become an independent mining area if the lode continues south with a similar tenor of mineralisation.
Westralia is a less mature proposition. About 13,000 metres of surface drilling has been completed since drilling restarted in the third quarter of FY26, including a 3.44m intersection at 18.45g/t near Marceline. Downhole electromagnetic surveying has identified several largely untested, east-dipping structures, but the work remains pre-resource and will need follow-up drilling before it can support a mine plan.
Barminco handover creates a near-term production drag
The immediate operational issue is the transition from Develop Global to Barminco, a Perenti subsidiary, as underground mining contractor. Barminco took operational control on 1 August, but workforce availability, equipment commissioning and restricted access to some planned high-grade stopes have slowed the ramp-up.
Bellevue expects September-quarter gold production to be 3,000-4,000 ounces below its previous expectation. The company says mined grades remain in line with plan, meaning the shortfall reflects lower mined and processed volumes rather than weaker geology, and has left FY27 production guidance unchanged. Its expectation that deferred ounces will be recovered in later quarters is therefore dependent on the contractor reaching the planned operating rate.
Bottom Line?
Bellevue is spending to rebuild its growth pipeline, but the next test is whether Barminco can recover deferred ounces while exploration converts promising intersections into additional mineable inventory.
Questions in the middle?
- Can Barminco complete its ramp-up quickly enough to recover the 3,000-4,000 ounces deferred from the September quarter?
- Will Deacon North drilling convert high-grade shoots into a larger and more durable contribution to the FY27 mine schedule?
- Can Tribune South, Westralia and the deeper Lake Miranda targets add Resources and Reserves before depletion continues to erode the project inventory?