KAU drills out waste dumps at Victorian gold project

Our gold producing Investment Kaiser Reef (ASX: KAU) is just finished a drill program on its Victorian gold projects.

While the main catalysts we watch out for from KAU is related to the Henty project in Tasmania (where KAU produced ~26k ounces of gold in FY25.

We think the Victorian assets deserve some attention, mainly because of the 350ktpa processing plant in Victoria (below full capacity at the moment).

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KAU confirmed today that in Victoria, “during November” ~3,567t of waste material was processed at average gold grades of 1.6g/t and recovery rates of 90%.

(our back-of-the-napkin calcs tell us that could be ~165 ounces of gold - worth ~US$700k at today’s prices - not bad for waste dump material)

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That material came from waste dumps left by the old miners on the projects.

Usually, waste dumps wouldn’t be material enough to matter for a gold producer - but the Maldon project actually contained some of Victoria (and Australia’s) highest grade gold projects so the waste dumps are naturally also relatively high grade…

One of the projects on KAU’s ground is Nuggety Reef which is actually Australia’s highest grade gold mine - (historic production of ~301k oz of gold at ~187g/t gold grades back in 1850-1860’s)

Today, KAU also completed a 163 hole drill program across a waste dump footprint of >50,000m2, which is estimated to have >410,000m3 of material.

Results are now in the assay lab and expected to be received in early 2026.

With how close the two waste dumps are to KAU’s processing plant we are looking forward to seeing those results, especially because:

• The cost of getting this to the processing plant would be minimal compared to a normal mining operation (as it is already at surface), potentially can be loaded straight onto transport,
• KAU owns the plant nearby which has available capacity, and
• Gold prices are where they currently are (~US$4,300 per ounce)

So far from the two waste dumps on its ground KAU has identified:

1. The Union Hill waste dumps - 50,000m2 area with an estimated volume of over 410,000 cubic metres. Here, a previous trial run of 2,628 tonnes of material returned 0.86g/t gold with recovery rates around 99%.
2. The Nuggety Reef waste dumps - Area of nearly 16,000m2 where KAU has sampled grades up to ~1.8g/t from rock chips. A bulk sample from here (for 2,401 tonnes of material) back in 2018 returned gold grades of ~2.5g/t gold with recovery rates of ~87.1%.

And here are the area’s drilled across the Union Hill waste dump:

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What’s next for KAU?

Cost optimisation and exploration at Tasmanian project (Henty) 🔄

The main thing we want to see at Henty is for KAU to increase production rates and optimise costs.

Today the company confirmed that upgrades to the plant are mostly in place with trials to begin shortly on increasing throughput.

(Source)

Here KAU’s new managing director Brad Valiukas talking about the optimisation work KAU is doing on site:

Watch it here: Kaiser Reef: Henty Growth, Maldon Potential & A1 Update (KAU.ASX)

Exploration program at Maldon 🔄

Now with KAU’s drilling at Maldon complete and results released, we want to see follow up drilling on the results announced today.

With KAU expecting to begin works to re-access and rehabilitate the underground decline in January we are looking forward to seeing KAU drill new areas of Maldon from underground. (source)