The new owners of the Waihi gold mines are sinking $10 million into an exploration for more gold.

Oceanagold has eight drill rigs operating, four in the vicinity of the open pit and four underground.

Oceanagold is going to re-open the Martha mine.

The four on the surface around the pit investigating opportunities around the pit, which has been closed following a rock slide in April last year.

'We are constructing a new haul road into the open pit,” says Oceanagold senior community advisor Kit Wilson.

'That's happening right now, and we are investigating opportunities around the pit. We already know there is gold left in the pit. There's about 75,000 ounces. There's still ore left that would have been taken out if the slide hadn't happened.

'Underground (at the Collenso mine), we are investigating, we are looking at the possibility of going deeper. And I stress the word investigating, because we have not got consents for that. But there's no point going for a consent until you know what's there.”

Instead of going straight down, the drilling is being done at an angle to give a better chance of striking the gold bearing epithermal quartz veins that around Waihi, come straight up at 90 degrees.

'If we drill at an angle we stand a chance of intercepting them,” says Kit.

It takes a lot of hits from a large number of drill holes to determine the grade and extent of an ore deposit and work out whether it can be mined.

It's a bit like digging up potatoes with a long stick instead of a spade.

'If you poke the stick into the ground and don't hit a potato on your first attempt, does that mean there are no spuds in your garden and you should stop,” says Kit.

'Conversely, if you poke your stick into the garden three times and hit a potato each time, does that mean your entire garden is full of potatoes? That's what exploration is like, but with very tiny potatoes which you think might be buried very deeply, or which may not actually be there at all.”

As an example, it took forty exploration drill holes to ‘find all the potatoes' and confirm the extent and grade of the main section of the Correnso ore body, currently being mined under Waihi.

With exploration drilling from the surface the first 100 metres or more is not mineralised, it doesn't contain mineable quantities gold.

'If we can reach the target areas from underground it is cheaper and quicker as we are beginning the hole at depth,” says Kit.

'There's also another benefit. Drilling from underground means that we can drill shorter holes at right angles to the vein systems to intercept them.”

Oceanagold bought the Waihi mines off Newmont last October for $132 million.

Newmont is one of the largest mining companies in the world and the Waihi mines are a very small part of the overall Newmont operation.

'We were a good producer and the cash cost was low, good operating costs good producing - but we were just too small for Newmont,” says Kit.

Oceanagold is a mid-tier gold producer also operating the McCrae mine in the South Island, a gold and copper mine in the Philippines, and is in the process of starting construction of a mine in South Carolina.

'Oceana bought Waihi Gold to keep it operating,” says Kit.

'Under our previous owners and as a very small part of a much larger business we didn't say much until we were pretty sure we were about to land a decent sized fish. Now, as OceanaGold , and being a large part of a much smaller company, stock exchange rules require us to say much more about what we are doing.

'This is known as ‘materiality'. If an activity has the potential to materially affect our share price it must be reported. Nothing else has changed, it just means that you may see frequent reports on where we are drilling. Just like before, it doesn't mean we have landed the big one. We are still fishing.”