Santana pauses application for gold mine
Thursday, 25 June 2026
Australian mining company Santana Minerals has temporarily suspended its Fast-track application for a controversial gold mine in Central Otago.
In advice to the Australian and New Zealand sharemarkets on Thursday, Santana said the pause was to allow it to provide additional information and reports in support of its application for a large open pit gold mine near Cromwell.
The mine proposal is being assessed by an expert panel under the Government’s Fast-track process, which is designed to speed up consideration of major projects.
“This is a voluntary move by the company post the expert-conferencing phase to ensure the expert panel assessing the application has all the information and data they would likely need to arrive at their decision,” Santana chief executive Damian Spring said.
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Fast-track panel chair Matthew Muir, KC, also issued a minute on Thursday indicating the panel had agreed to Santana’s suggestion of a pause in the process.
Muir said the panel met with Spring and Santana counsel Joshua Leckie in Wellington on Tuesday, and discussed the panel’s need for more information about a number of aspects of the proposed mine.
Santana lodged its 9400-page Fast-track application in November 2025, after spending $8 million on providing research and information.
The seven-person Fast-track panel began work in February, and set a 140-working day timeframe for its considerations, with a final decision due by October 29.
As well as public hearings for affected parties, the panel has held expert conferencing or “hot-tubbing” on a range of topics including ecology, heritage, landscape and economics over the last two weeks in Wellington.
Following these, Leckie told the panel Santana would be seeking to temporarily suspend its application so that further information could be gathered to help the panel’s considerations, and suggested it would require a pause of 20 working days.
The panel also indicated it would issue further requests for information from Santana, which could impact on the length of the pause.
Spring said that despite suspending processing of its application, “the company has requested the expert panel, its advisers, and the Environmental Protection Authority (which oversees the Fast-track process) continue work on the application.”
However, Muir has already drawn Santana’s attention to the pressures its suspension will create on the panel arriving at its final decision.
He said the panel couldn’t require any party to undertake further work, or supply any information during the suspension, but encouraged their continued input to the process, given the mounting time pressures.
Despite Santana’s extensive application, the Fast-track panel has made numerous requests for further information from the company.
Today’s suspension of processing shines a light on concerns that the Fast-track process, with its limited timeframe, isn’t appropriate for such complex proposals.
The Fast-track panel has not indicated whether the latest events will delay its final decision until after October 29, but Santana’s statements to the stockmarkets suggested the statutory timeframe could still be met.