4 Questions With an Exploration Leader: Darren Stralow

Bellevue Gold's journey from historic mining camp to modern gold producer has been driven by a simple idea: There is always more to discover. What began as a strategy to extend known mineralization, quickly evolved into a series of discoveries that helped define one of Australia's highest-grade gold resources.

Today, with the Bellevue mine operating and new exploration opportunities emerging from underground, the company is entering its next chapter. We spoke with Bellevue Gold’s Managing Director Darren Stralow about the geological insights that shaped Bellevue's success, the exploration upside that remains, and how the company communicates its story as they continue to grow.

4 QUESTIONS WITH AN EXPLORATION LEADER 

1. Bellevue Gold has gone from a smaller producer, to building one of Australia’s highest-grade gold discoveries in recent years. From an exploration strategy perspective, what were some key geological indicators that gave your team confidence early on?

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Darren Stralow: From early on, the Bellevue geology team recognized the potential for Bellevue to be a much larger system. Geological interpretation led the team to explore extensions to the historically mined Bellevue Lode while also investigating the potential for additional mineralized lodes. This paid dividends early on with the discovery of the Tribune Lode to the west.

Another valuable exploration tool for the team has been downhole electromagnetics (DHEM), used to target mineralization. The conductive and magnetic nature of the sulphides hosting the gold at Bellevue makes them highly responsive in geophysical surveys. DHEM played an integral role in the discovery of a third high-grade lode to the east, at Deacon. This proved to be a game changer for Bellevue and a key contributor to the 3.1 Moz high-grade resource that ultimately supported development of the Bellevue mine and processing plant.

2. As Bellevue enters its next phase as a producer, how do you think the market’s perception of the company is evolving, and what do you see as the key drivers of value creation going forward?

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DS: The quality of the Bellevue orebody has always been recognized as a long-life, high-grade underground mine in the tier one jurisdiction of Western Australia. Now that the mine is fully ramped up, Bellevue is building a reputation for strong and consistent high margin production. The key drivers of future value creation include continued delivery against guidance, ongoing de-risking through a strong balance sheet, and sustained growth through progressively unlocking Bellevue's exceptional exploration potential. The fact that the mine is the only net zero gold mine in the world also drives value.

3. Looking ahead, what excites you most about the future potential of the Bellevue Gold project?

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DS: The exploration potential really excites me. Earlier in 2026, the 3.1 Moz resource and 1.3 Moz ore reserve were all defined by surface drilling. Now that we have the underground mine operating, we can start targeting the down plunge extents of the three ore bodies to the south from underground drilling. Approximately 4 Moz has been mined or defined at Bellevue, yet an area of similar size immediately south of the mine, beneath the salt lake, remains largely untested by drilling. This area hosts several of the untested DHEM targets that are associated with gold mineralization elsewhere at Bellevue. We can now test these from underground.

4. How has VRIFY Present changed the way Bellevue shares technical information with stakeholders compared to more traditional presentation formats?

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DS: VRIFY Present has proved extremely useful at sharing the Bellevue mine and exploration targets in three dimensions. Not only does VRIFY Present enable a virtual fly through of the project, but it also allows the presenter to manually zoom in or out while annotating and defining key pieces of information. VRIFY has transformed the way we present.

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With future discovery very much a reality for Darren and the Bellevue team, it’s clear that having a way to seamlessly share the exploration potential is creating an impact. As Bellevue continues to grow, the ability to clearly communicate complex geology will remain just as important as the discoveries themselves.

VRIFY has transformed the way we present and has proven to be extremely useful at presenting the Bellevue mine and exploration targets in 3D. Not only does VRIFY enable a virtual fly through of the project, but it also allows the presenter to manually zoom in or out and draw and define key pieces of information.

_{Darren Stralow, Managing Director of Bellevue Gold}

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To learn more about how VRIFY is supporting communication and exploration in mining, book a demo.