Aureka Adds 94,000oz at Irvine as Comstock Targets First Gold Within 12 Months

• 94,000oz added to the Irvine Resolution resource (36% increase), taking total Irvine ounces to 398,300 at 2.59 g/t
• Toll milling agreement signed with Wedderburn mill for near-term Comstock production, targeting first ore within ~12 months
• Comstock's 56,500oz resource and 112,000–116,000oz exploration target sit within the historic 400koz St Arnaud goldfield
• Management guiding to 3,000–7,000oz first-year Comstock production at an estimated 50% margin
• Company trades under $20 million market cap versus a $150 million peak for the same tenements in 2020, at roughly half today's gold price

Western Victoria is best known to investors for the Fosterville and Stawell gold mines, two of the highest-grade and longest-running gold operations in the country. Aureka (ASX:AKA) is building a portfolio around that same ground, and in a conversation with Crux Investor, Managing Director James Gurry and Exploration Manager Jozef Story set out a strategy that leans on near-term cash flow from a small brownfield restart rather than repeated capital raises. The pitch: use the Comstock project at St Arnaud to generate free cash flow within roughly 12 months, then plough that money into the company's flagship Irvine Gold Project, which just added 94,000 ounces to its resource base.

A Distressed Portfolio Bought Back

Gurry's route into the company is unusual for a junior gold MD. He spent seven years as a mining analyst in London covering large-caps including BHP, Rio Tinto, Glencore and Anglo American, part of a 20-year career spanning Sydney, London and Melbourne. After a stint on the board of an iron ore producer, he identified a portfolio of Victorian gold assets that had fallen into distress in 2023, when gold prices were low and ASX gold equities were out of favour. He negotiated to buy the package, which had previously traded at close to $150 million in market capitalisation, for less than $1 million, then returned it to the ASX within 12 months. The company listed at the end of 2024 and has drilled continuously since the start of 2025, lifting its JORC resource base by 50% over that period.

Story joined around 12 months ago from Barrick, where he was exploration manager for the company's Tanzanian assets, leading a team of roughly 30 geologists. His career began in the mid-1990s as a junior geologist at the Fosterville gold mine, back when it was a small open pit, before he spent time across Southeast Asia and six years in China with Eldorado Gold, working FIFO for around 18 years in total.

Interview with Managing Director, James Gurry

Comstock: The Near-Term Cash Engine

Rather than wait years to bring the larger Irvine project into production, Aureka's first move is Comstock, a brownfield project within the historic St Arnaud goldfield, roughly 70 kilometres from Irvine. St Arnaud produced approximately 400,000 ounces of gold historically at a grade of around 15 g/t, and Comstock itself carries a 56,500-ounce inferred resource at 1.21 g/t gold and 2.14 g/t silver, with a further exploration target of 112,000 to 116,000 ounces.

Aureka has signed a toll milling agreement with the Wedderburn gold mill, which management describes as project-agnostic, meaning it can eventually process ore from Irvine as well. The company submitted its production licence application roughly six weeks before the interview, and with Victorian approvals typically taking a handful of months, Gurry is targeting a roughly 12-month timeline to first ore movement. Because the Comstock pit was last mined in 1995, existing pit and road access should keep upfront capital low.

"The real objective is to create a small company with its own revenue, its own profits, its own free cash flow that's reinvesting in itself and growing for itself," Gurry said, framing Comstock as a way to fund the company's larger ambitions without repeatedly returning to the market for cash.

Management is guiding to first-year Comstock production of 3,000 to 7,000 ounces, which at current gold prices would generate an estimated A$30 million to A$50 million in revenue, with a targeted margin of around 50%. Recent drilling at Comstock's Walker zone returned visible gold, and the company believes there is underground potential on both the Comstock and Walkers structures, mirroring historical high-grade, narrow-vein mining in the belt.

Irvine: The Bigger Prize

Aureka's flagship is the 100%-owned Irvine Gold Project, sitting 16 kilometres from the Stawell Gold Mine, a roughly 5-million-ounce operation with a production history stretching back decades. Irvine currently hosts a 398,300-ounce inferred JORC resource at 2.59 g/t gold, following a 94,000-ounce addition at the Resolution lode announced on 18 June 2026, a 36% increase driven largely by an improved structural and geological understanding of the deposit.

"I saw an opportunity in that the geology at Irvine and the resource that they had put around the geology was a little bit flimsy in my opinion. I thought we could do better. So we went back and made a really concerted effort to understand the structural controls... and what we were able to do is create 11 new geological domains that we could then build the resource around." 

The updated Resolution model now splits the deposit across those 11 domains, with Total Resolution tonnes rising from 3.21 million to 4.11 million and grade improving from 2.56 g/t to 2.71 g/t.

Two diamond rigs are currently turning, one on each project, and the company has identified what it calls the Tenacity Fault, a newly recognised high-grade structure that delivered the project's best assays to date, including 10m at 12.1 g/t gold from 413m, incorporating 0.3m at 183 g/t gold. Beyond the current resource, Aureka carries Advanced and Conceptual Exploration Targets at Resolution of 85,000 to 197,000 ounces and 151,000 to 348,000 ounces respectively, alongside an unchanged Adventure lode target, taking total Irvine-area exploration targets above 600,000 ounces on top of the existing resource.

Story sees regional parallels from his time in Tanzania:

"If you look at these belts around the world, very rarely are you going to get one 5 million ounce deposit just sitting on its own... We've got a very similar situation here."

Funding the Path Forward

Gurry argues the staged approach differentiates Aureka from typical junior explorers that must repeatedly dilute shareholders to fund large, capital-intensive projects. Cash flow from Comstock is intended to support ongoing drilling at Irvine, where management believes there is potential to grow the resource toward the million-ounce mark over time, while a full development decision on Irvine itself remains a longer-dated goal, with Gurry estimating a first mining licence there is roughly three years away.

He also pointed to valuation as a reason for investor interest: the previous owner of these tenements traded up to around $150 million in market capitalisation in 2020, at roughly half today's gold price, while Aureka currently trades at a market capitalisation under $20 million.

A Broader Pipeline Behind the Two Lead Assets

Irvine and Comstock sit at the top of a wider Victorian portfolio that spans the Stawell Corridor, St Arnaud, Jubilee and Stavely Arc regions. Beneath the inferred-resource stage occupied by Resolution, Adventure and Comstock, Aureka is advancing earlier-stage targets including Morning Bill, an Au-Ag-Cu project within the Stavely Belt, and New Bendigo and Langi Logan North, both classified as advanced projects. 

A further tier of follow-up and identified targets, among them Jubilee, Westmere, Hollybush and Percydale Under Cover, rounds out a pipeline management describes as giving the company multiple ways to add ounces beyond the two projects currently driving news flow. Gurry and Story both frame this as a long-term approach built on permanent land access across the corridor, rather than a single-asset bet.

Investment Thesis for Aureka

• Two-track strategy separates a low-capex, near-term cash generator (Comstock) from a larger, longer-dated development asset (Irvine), reducing reliance on dilutive capital raises.
• Comstock's toll milling agreement with the Wedderburn mill is project-agnostic, giving Aureka an existing processing route for both current and future ounces.
• The 94,000-ounce, 36% increase to the Resolution resource came from a structural reinterpretation rather than new discovery ground, suggesting further upgrades are possible from the existing drill database and ongoing programme.
• Irvine sits within a proven, multi-million-ounce gold corridor 16km from the 5Moz Stawell Gold Mine, with over 600,000 ounces of exploration target still to be tested.
• Current market capitalisation (sub-$20 million) sits well below the $150 million peak the same tenement package achieved in 2020, at roughly half the current gold price.
• Watch item: Comstock's production licence approval and the outcome of ongoing infill drilling at the Walker zone, both directly tied to the 12-month timeline to first production.
• Watch item: further assay results from the high-grade Tenacity Fault at Resolution, which management flags as a key driver of future resource growth.
• Risk: the staged, self-funded model is less capital-efficient than a single, fully-funded development path, and near-term Comstock cash flow is not yet proven at scale.
• A broader pipeline of earlier-stage Victorian targets (Morning Bill, New Bendigo, Langi Logan North, Jubilee) offers optionality for resource growth beyond the two lead assets, though none are yet at the resource-definition stage.

Macro Thematic Analysis

Gold's move to record highs in 2026 has sharpened the distinction between explorers offering pure blue-sky optionality and those with a credible, near-term route to cash flow. Aureka's model, using a small brownfield restart to self-fund exploration at a larger project, is a direct response to that shift, aiming to reduce the company's dependence on equity markets that can be unreceptive regardless of the underlying gold price. It also reflects a broader trend across the Victorian goldfields, where explorers are increasingly targeting historic, high-grade underground workings such as Comstock and the wider St Arnaud field as a faster, lower-capital route into production than large open-pit developments. 

Story's read on Irvine draws directly on that broader context: multi-million-ounce belts, he argues, rarely host a single isolated deposit, and the string of gold occurrences along the Stawell Corridor between Irvine and the operating Stawell mine points to a larger endowment than the current resource captures. For investors, that combination, near-term cash flow funding exploration in a genuinely underexplored, world-class gold corridor, is the core of the re-rating case.

TL;DR

Aureka (ASX:AKA) has added 94,000 ounces to the resource at its flagship Irvine Gold Project, a 36% increase driven by a structural reinterpretation of the Resolution lode, taking total Irvine ounces to 398,300 at 2.59 g/t. Rather than fund Irvine's development through repeated capital raises, management is targeting near-term cash flow from the smaller, brownfield Comstock project near St Arnaud, where a signed toll milling agreement and a submitted production licence application point to first ore within roughly 12 months. Comstock carries a 56,500-ounce resource and a further 112,000 to 116,000-ounce exploration target. Management is guiding to first-year Comstock production of 3,000 to 7,000 ounces at an estimated 50% margin, with proceeds earmarked to fund continued exploration at Irvine.

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