EASTERN SHORE – An Australian gold mining company that once had interests in the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and its home country now says its future lies on Nova Scotia’s Eastern Shore.
St Barbara Ltd. said in a Sept. 28 investor presentation prepared for Mining Forum Americas in Colorado that, following the sale of its remaining interest in the New Simberi Gold Project in Papua New Guinea, it will become a “Nova Scotia focused developer,” with production from the forthcoming restart of its Touquoy processing facility at Moose River while it advances the 15-Mile Processing Hub Project near Trafalgar.
The company had signalled the same shift earlier in the month when the New Simberi sale was announced Sept. 10, under which St Barbara agreed to sell its 40 per cent stake in the property to Lingbao Gold for about $449 million in cash plus royalties.
In a statement at the time, managing director and CEO Andrew Strelein said the transaction would allow St Barbara “to focus on the development of the Nova Scotia gold projects and the attractive exploration portfolio surrounding the 15-Mile Processing Hub.”
St Barbara is awaiting a federal decision on how 15-Mile will be assessed. Its investor presentation says it expects a determination under Section 16 of the Impact Assessment Act in the fourth quarter of 2026, which, according to the company, would mean the project would proceed without a separate federal examination running alongside the provincial process.
A feasibility study for 15-Mile is scheduled for completion by the end of March 2027, with a final investment decision targeted for June.
The project marks the latest stage in St Barbara’s evolving Nova Scotia mining plans.
For years, the company advanced three separate northeastern Nova Scotia projects – Fifteen Mile Stream, Beaver Dam and Cochrane Hill, near the St. Mary’s River not far from Sherbrooke in the Municipality of the District of St. Mary’s. By late 2025, it had recast them as a single regional development centred on the 15-Mile Processing Hub.
Under that plan, Beaver Dam became Old Austen Mine and Cochrane Hill became Old Mitchell Mine and were redesigned as satellite quarry-style pits, with ore hauled to 15-Mile for processing and tailings storage.
The new configuration eliminated proposed tailings facilities and industrial water withdrawals at both satellite sites, while reducing the size of Old Mitchell. The changes followed years of environmental work, engineering studies and feedback from communities, First Nations and other groups, the company said at the time.
An updated pre-feasibility study, also released Sept. 28, increased total estimated ore reserves for the three-site project by 17 per cent to 1.44 million ounces of gold and extended the projected mine life to 13 years.
Of that reserve, 860,000 ounces are at 15-Mile, 340,000 ounces at Old Mitchell and 240,000 ounces at Old Austen. St Barbara now estimates average production of 106,000 ounces a year, with annual production exceeding 120,000 ounces in fiscal 2031 and 2032. Initial capital is estimated at $289 million.
“The evolution of 15-Mile continues as we undertake further work in preparing for the development of what will be a long-life, low-cost development in a jurisdiction we know well,” Strelein said in the Sept. 28 pre-feasibility update.
Meanwhile, the project remains a concern for the St. Mary’s River Association, which opposed earlier versions of the Cochrane Hill project and has renewed its public campaign around 15-Mile.
Association president Scott Beaver told The Journal just before St Barbara released its Sept. 28 material that many residents may still know little about the consolidated proposal.
“I feel like it takes the public a little while to catch on,” he said. “So there may not be a whole lot of knowledge out there right now.”
In its effort to bring the project and its possible effects on surrounding communities back before the public, the association held presentations at its interpretive centre in Sherbrooke and a guided hike into the Archibald Lake Wilderness Area on Sept. 27.
Beaver has also pointed to research by St. Francis Xavier University environmental sociologist Baran Karsak examining mining’s effects on housing, businesses, municipal services and community relationships.
“The economic benefits of mining are generally short term, while many of the social and environmental costs will last for generations,” Beaver told The Journal when Karsak’s report was released last month.
In an email last week, Beaver also pointed to St Barbara’s agreement to sell its remaining interest in New Simberi and the money the transaction would make available to the company.
“St Barbara entered into a binding agreement to sell its interests in Simberi which will raise significant money [and] is certainly not a good thing for us along the Eastern Shore of NS,” he said.
For its part, St Barbara disputes the relevance of Karsak’s report to 15-Mile. Dustin O’Leary, the company’s manager of business development for Atlantic operations, told The Journal last month that the research draws on mines whose scale, circumstances and regulatory environments differ from the proposed Nova Scotia development.
The company estimates 15-Mile would generate about $5 billion in economic activity in Nova Scotia, create more than 1,300 construction jobs and support more than 700 jobs during operations.
In a separate Sept. 28 update, St Barbara said it was also expanding exploration around Old Austen. The company has prioritized underground potential below the proposed open pit and additional mineralization at the nearby Mill Shaft West prospect, with a major drilling program planned for the spring and summer of 2027.
A 22-square-kilometre magnetic survey around Old Austen was scheduled for early October, followed by structural analysis to refine drilling targets.
As for Touquoy, the company – which sold its Gold Ridge mine in the Solomon Islands in 2015 and its Leonora assets in Western Australia in 2023 – told investors that it expects operating cash flow to resume when ore processing restarts by the end of 2026.
Gold prices have climbed sharply in recent years; in early October, spot gold was trading at about $5,900 an ounce.
