Vault Leonora gold reserve lift: conversion drilling insights for mine planners
Reviewed by Joe Ashwell

First reported on Australian Mining
30 Second Briefing
Vault Minerals has lifted group gold ore reserves by almost 10 per cent to nearly 4Moz, while maintaining total mineral resources at 12.1Moz as at 30 June, all within Australia. Drilling across its Leonora portfolio, including the King of the Hills operation, is delivering resource growth and mine life extensions rather than new greenfield additions. The reserve increase without a corresponding resource uplift points to successful conversion drilling and tighter geological modelling, with planning implications for mill throughput, cut-off grades and long-term fleet scheduling.
Technical Brief
- All ore reserves and mineral resources are located within Australia, simplifying sovereign and regulatory risk.
- Stable group resource inventory with higher reserves implies reduced geological uncertainty in key orebodies.
- For similar brownfields gold camps, the case supports prioritising near‑mine drilling over remote greenfields programmes.
Our Take
In our database of gold project stories, Leonora-scale reserve builds like this tend to be used to reset mine plans at cornerstone assets such as King of the Hills, often extending life-of-mine assumptions that acquirers like Genesis Minerals model into their production targets of 600,000–700,000 oz/year.
The reserve uplift at an Australian gold hub like Leonora also helps Vault’s portfolio stack up against peers mentioned in the takeover context (Northern Star, Evolution, Regis), where scale and reserve longevity are key to justifying multi‑billion‑dollar corporate transactions.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
Related Articles
Related Industries & Products
Mining
Geotechnical software solutions for mining operations including CMRR analysis, hydrogeological testing, and data management.
CMRR-io
Streamline coal mine roof stability assessments with our cloud-based CMRR software featuring automated calculations, multi-scenario analysis, and collaborative workflows.
HYDROGEO-io
Comprehensive hydrogeological testing platform for managing, analysing, and reporting on packer tests, lugeon values, and hydraulic conductivity assessments.
GEODB-io
Centralised geotechnical data management solution for storing, accessing, and analysing all your site investigation and material testing data.
