Bellevue Gold’s troubled mine rocked by an explosion as the mid-tier producer continues to miss gold boom

Bellevue Gold’s namesake mine is in the sights of WA’s safety regulator after an explosion in February, which has now come to light while the company’s shareholders nervously wait on a flagged production downgrade. Sources have told The West Australian explosive charges were laid in blast holes to open up new mining land, but one of the charges failed to detonate. The misfired charge later exploded. No one was injured in the blast. A spokesman for WorkSafe confirmed the explosion and said an infringement notice was slapped on Bellevue. “WorkSafe has been notified of a misfire explosive incident at Bellevue gold mine in early February 2025,” the spokesman said. “WorkSafe mines safety inspectors issued an improvement notice and are continuing their enquiries.” Bellevue declined to comment on the explosion and WorkSafe’s response, which has piled more pressure on the floundering miner. Bellevue on Friday told the market its shares will remain in a trading suspension because the company was not ready to provide investors with a likely production downgrade at its mine in the northern Goldfields. The Darren Stralow-led miner hit pause on the stock on March 28 and had set a target date of Friday to return to the boards. On Friday, Bellevue stayed in its trading freeze but revealed the mine was bleeding cash and gold production in the March quarter was lower than anticipated. “Three stopes mined during March, which were on the edges of the ore body, have uncharacteristically underperformed compared to the reserve,” the company stated via an ASX announcement. “Rapid mining rates due to ramp up also led to some dilution of grade.” Bellevue held $49 million in cash and gold on hand at March 31 — down from $81m at the end of December — with total debts of $100m payable in 2027. Bellevue said any current information on a guidance update would be “based on incomplete and uncertain information without reasonable grounds”. It gave no further time frame to deliver the new set of figures. The green gold trailblazer stunned the market in early January when it reduced expected gold output from Bellevue for the current financial year to between 150,000 and 165,000 ounces, down from a previously guided range of 165,000oz to 180,000oz. Bellevue’s shares latest traded at $1.14. Its stock slumped more than 13 per cent in the two days leading up to trading halt, despite no news and during a period when most other gold miners were seeing their share prices rise as gold marched towards $5,000/oz. The company has lost more than 40 per cent of its value over the past year, making it the worst performing ASX-listed gold producer at a time when most of its peers have gained more than 50 per cent and broken their share price records amid gold’s record bull run. Bellevue wants to make its operation carbon-neutral by 2026, which has been spruiked as an industry-first. A large portion of the market had been concerned by Bellevue’s production ramp up not meeting grade expectations since the inaugural gold pour in October 2023, the company’s large hedge book not enabling it to take advantage of record gold prices, and the risk associated with being a first mover on net-zero gold. Bellevue was the most shorted ASX gold stock for the majority of last year.