The main areas for the mine life extension, being sought from the Otago Regional Council and Waitaki District Council, include its Frasers underground operations and its surrounding pit and other pits at Macraes in East Otago.
Earlier this month, Oceana's New Zealand mine life was estimated to be until 2018-19, underpinned by increased exploration at both Macraes and Reefton, on the West Coast, exploration having boosted the latter's estimated gold resource by 14%.
Oceana's chief operating officer Mark Cadzow said mine life was initially set at seven years but the mine had been operating continuously now for 21 years.
"The mine is still a significant contributor to the local economy, due to continued investment and utilising new technologies developed over the years," he said.
The combination of record gold prices, Oceana disengaging from holding any forward gold selling contracts and spending of more than $15 million on exploration in the past three years had contributed to the mine-life extension.
The publicly-notified resource consent applications, if granted, will allow Oceana to extend its current life of mine plan to 2020.
The applications cover land use for drilling, water permits for diversion and damming and discharge of containments to water, land and air.
Mr Cadzow estimated Oceana contributed $200 million to the local economy and employed up to 600 people.
Oceana intends to continue processing around 6 million tonnes of raw ore per year, in conjunction with the partly-refined output from its Reefton open pit mine. Estimated gold production would average around 270,000 ounces per year, Mr Cadzow said yesterday.
Separately, Oceana estimated recently that once its development gold and copper mine at Didipio, in the Philippines, was fully operational, the company would be producing collectively 600,000 ounces of gold annually by 2016.
