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Vault Minerals (ASX:VAU) has minted a new Group Ore Reserves figure of 4Moz “post FY25 mine depletion” (and a 3% increase in mineral resources to 12.2Moz on the same basis), but shares have slid early Monday, declining -2.6% to 64cps.

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While that’s not a dramatic sell-off by any means, and for all intents and purposes, the gold rally is clearly here to stay, an increase to group resources of only 3% might have underwhelmed some. Then again, it could just be the fact that the overall market is, once again, having a depressing start to the week.

Still, the company’s King of The Hill (KoTH) underground mine has recently been the site of drilling results suggesting extended mineralisation, and the Sugar Zone asset resource sits 20% higher at 389Koz.

Mt. Monger reserves “net of FY25 mine depletion” have increased to 629Koz, and the company’s overall FY26 exploration CapEx is budgeted for A$30 million, with the lion’s share of that to focus on operations at Leonora, WA. For its part, drilling at Mt. Monger will focus on a target of interest called the Daisy Complex.

“Large Resource and Ore Reserve base provides significant leverage to the current gold price and constructive gold price outlook with free cash flow expected to grow significantly in H2 FY26 as hedge deliveries decline ahead of the hedge book’s exhaustion in Q1 FY27,” the company wrote on Monday.

All in all – maybe too much “more of the same” for investors’ interest in an extremely hot and fast-paced market with no shortage of places to put cash when it comes to gold miners. Especially given that Vault has nearly 7B shares on issue.

VAU last traded at 64cps.

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