Drilling at the Horseshoe deposit at the developing Haile mine in South Carolina returned 11.2m at 35 grams per tonne gold; 50.6m at 6.8gpt gold; 27.4m at 11.7gpt gold; and 27.2m at 11.3gpt gold.

The results will be incorporated into the year-end resources and reserves update, which in turn will be included in the Haile optimisation study due in mid-2017.

Drilling has now started on the Palomino target.

At Waihi in NZ, surface drilling returned 44m at 3.63gpt gold, including 13.7m at 8.83gpt; and 34.9m at 5.2gpt gold.

Additional assays are pending and drilling is ongoing.

Also in NZ, a shallow high-grade shoot has been discovered at the Nunns prospect at Macraes.

Results included 6m at 5.13gpt gold; 6m at 3.02gpt gold; and 10m at 1.83gpt gold.

At Coronation North, discovered last year, new results included 21m at 3.64gpt gold; 19m at 2.78gpt gold; and 19m at 2.51gpt gold, supporting a future increase in the resource.

Results from the Frasers underground included 8.5m at 4.06gpt gold; and 4.8m at 3.42gpt gold.

A 50,000m infill and resource extension program at the Didipio copper-gold mine in the Philippines is underway.

The work is part of OceanaGold’s $US25-30 million exploration spend this year.

CEO Mick Wilkes said the investment continued to deliver strong results and demonstrate the organic growth potential of the business.

Shares in OceanaGold dropped 4% yesterday to $A4.44.