MEX, previously known as Uvre, acquired a package of NZ gold assets last year via the takeover of unlisted company Otagold, which was controlled by Seckold, Peter Nightingale and Jason Beckton.

“I’ve been stalking these assets for 14 years, particularly the North Island asset, and the reason I persisted was, despite previous governments, you generally had uninterrupted gold mining operations in the North and South Island,” Beckton told the recent Resources Rising Stars Gather Round conference in Adelaide.

Despite having assets on each of NZ’s islands, Beckton said one would eventually win out as the focus project.

“At the moment, there’s a kind of internal competition between two of them and a third asset as well,” he said. 

On the North Island, the Waitekauri gold project abuts OceanaGold Corp’s operating Waihi gold mine.

MEX is targeting the discovery of a high-grade epithermal deposit at the brownfields site, a former Newmont project.

“There’s a long list of people who are almost addicted to this style of asset and these type of assets are very commercial and, for example, we sold Palmarejo for A$1.1 billion in scrip to Coeur d’Alene,” Beckton said. 

The Waihi mine is about to get better following OceanaGold’s Wharekirauponga (WKP) discovery, which has a high-grade resource of 2.2 million ounces of gold at 14.3 grams per tonne.

“Oceana, who are our benevolent neighbour, walked us through the entire exploration progress, history and false positives that they had at WKP, which they’re developing at the moment,” Beckton said. 

“WKP will throw off US$250 million free cashflow per annum once it gets into production in three years’ time – that’s at a gold price of US$2200. 

“At the moment, mathematically, if it was up and running, this 9 gram per tonne orebody would throw off half a billion free cashflow per annum. 

“That’s why people like Newmont, Oceana, even Barrick, stick with this style of asset despite the modest tonnes.”

In February, MEX reported the first results from its maiden drilling campaign.

Two holes underneath the historical Scotia gold workings intersected wide zones of mineralisation, in oxidised and altered dacite including 94.4m at 0.46g/t gold from 3.5m, including 3.9m at 5.53g/t gold; and 71m at 0.52g/t gold from 30m, including 3.5m at 5.02g/t gold.

Drilling is also underway at the Jubilee prospect, which historically produced around 29,000oz at 48g/t gold and silver.

Historical underground trenching along the vein at Jubilee in 1991 returned 13m at 80g/t gold; 24m at 45g/t gold; and 23m at 42g/t gold.

“Everyone knows drilling is the real driver of value for these entities but we’re drilling for high-grade in-situ numbers in a tunnel, if you like, along strike from a developing mine,” Beckton said.

The dark horse

On the South Island, MEX has the Invincible project, which Beckton suggested could be a dark horse.

Invincible shares key geological features with several large gold deposits in the Otago Goldfields, including OceanaGold’s Macraes gold mine, 170km to the southeast, and Santana Minerals’ 2.2Moz Bendigo-Ophir deposit, 65km to the east. 

MEX’s technical team believe there is potential for Invincible to be hosted in the same structural settings as Macraes and Bendigo-Ophir, both of which are of a bulk tonnage nature with discrete high-grade gold and tungsten zones.

The gold/tungsten veins produced at an average grade of 30g/t gold from the 1880s until the 1910s.

Invincible has seen no modern exploration.

In February, MEX reported rock chip results of up to 49.7g/t with visible gold in several samples.

Beckton also believes the project could host a lot of tungsten, which is so far the best-performing metal of 2026.

Prices have hit a record US$3000 per metric tonne unit due to supply shortages as a result of Chinese export demands.

It is also increasingly topical given its use in military applications.

“The Glenorchy tungsten mines are quite famous at the head of Lake Wakatipu and the grades generally average, historical numbers, at about 1.6% tungsten,” Beckton said.

For comparison, EQ Resources’ operating Mt Carbine mine in Queensland has a resource grade of 0.23% tungsten oxide.

“Importantly, it’s flat-lying, just like it is at Macraes and flat-lying just like it is at Bendigo to our east,” Beckton said. 

“There’s a growing realisation that this is real and we do already have access agreements to drill one of the targets, Davidson, which I hope we will get done by, I’d say, this summer. 

“So you’ll start seeing gold and tungsten numbers competing internally with the numbers from the North Island.”

MEX has A$4.2 million in cash to fund its work.

“We make decisive decisions on what not to drill, what to drop. We’ve already dropped two projects,” Beckton said.

“At the moment we’re one rig – obviously we hope to grow that.”