Silver Lake Resources Limited Is Now Vault Minerals

What happened to Silver Lake Resources Limited

Silver Lake Resources Limited no longer exists as a listed company. Its shares were transferred to Red 5 Limited on 19 June 2024, when the merger scheme was implemented, and ASX removed it from the official list at the close of trading on 20 June 2024 (ASX notice, 20 June 2024). Red 5 was renamed Vault Minerals Limited, trading on the ASX as VAU. The mines Silver Lake used to run are now Vault’s mines, and Vault itself has agreed to merge with Genesis Minerals, with a shareholder vote set for 11 November 2026.

That is the real story behind the company name, and it is the answer most readers are looking for. Silver Lake was an Australian gold producer based in Perth, Western Australia. Its old ASX code was SLR. If you hold old paperwork, a supplier contract or a tenement record that names the company, this page shows who stands behind it today, what the operations produced in the 2026 financial year, and what the proposed Genesis deal changes.

A note on terms. Australian companies report by financial year, and “FY26” means July 2025 to June 2026. Gold is counted in troy ounces (oz; one troy ounce is 31.1035 grams), and “koz” means thousand ounces. “Moz” means million ounces. Money in the company reports is in Australian dollars (A$) unless stated.

Timeline from the merger to the Genesis offer

Who runs the old Silver Lake mines today

Vault reports four groups of assets. Three of them come from Silver Lake: Mount Monger and Deflector in Western Australia, and Sugar Zone in Ontario, Canada. The fourth, Leonora, is built around King of the Hills and Darlot and came from Red 5. The Silver Lake origin of the first three is shown by the key tenement schedule in the 2024 merger announcement, which lists Daisy Milano (Mount Monger), Deflector and Sugar Zone as Silver Lake tenements and Darlot as a Red 5 tenement. The same announcement credits Red 5 with the ramp-up of King of the Hills.

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Gold Ore Reserves by operation

Thousand ounces of gold at 30 June 2026

The table gives the position at 30 June 2026 for each group. Gold Ore Reserve is the part of a deposit that has been shown to be economic to mine; Mineral Resource is the larger inventory that has reasonable prospects of being mined. Both come from Vault’s 2026 Resource and Reserve Statement (3 September 2026), and the FY26 production figures from Vault’s 3 July 2026 announcement.

Grade is the amount of gold per tonne of rock, in grams per tonne (g/t). Low grades like 0.7 g/t at Leonora work because the rock is mined in bulk at very large scale and processed in one big plant. High grades like 5.1 g/t at Sugar Zone and 3.1 g/t at Deflector come from underground mining, where each tonne costs more to move but carries more gold.

Gold output, prices and costs in the financial year

Vault produced 336,540 oz of gold in FY26, which met its full-year guidance, and it sold 334,901 oz at an average realised price of A$5,557 per oz, according to its June 2026 quarterly report of 29 July 2026 (production and sales first came in the 3 July 2026 announcement). The fourth quarter alone produced 89,338 oz, up 14% on the quarter before. Leonora supplied 53% of the year’s ounces, Mount Monger 24% and Deflector 23%.

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FY26 gold production by operation

Thousand ounces, July 2025 to June 2026

Costs matter as much as ounces. The industry measures them with all-in sustaining cost (AISC), the cost of producing and selling an ounce including the money needed to keep the mine running, as set out in the World Gold Council guidance note. It adds corporate overheads, sustaining exploration, sustaining capital and rehabilitation accretion to the direct operating costs. It leaves out income tax, financing charges and growth projects that expand production. Vault’s FY26 AISC was A$2,924 per oz, slightly above the top of its guided range, per the 29 July 2026 quarterly report.

The gap between price and cost is what the company keeps before tax, growth spending and shareholder returns. The chart below shows that gap across the periods Vault reported. The March 2026 quarter shows the widest gap because the realised price reached A$6,987 per oz.

Group results reported in August 2026 show what that gap produced. Underlying EBITDA rose 54% to A$953.3 million, cash flow after investing and lease payments was A$487.8 million, and the year ended with A$841.6 million in cash and bullion and no debt, according to Vault’s FY26 results announcement of 20 August 2026. Vault also closed its remaining gold hedges, so it sells at the spot price. A hedge is a contract that fixes a future selling price; closing the contracts removes both the downside and the cap on upside.

Guidance for the next two years

On a standalone basis, before any Genesis merger, Vault guided FY27 to 355,000 to 375,000 oz at an AISC of A$3,150 to A$3,350 per oz, and FY28 to 380,000 to 400,000 oz, per the 29 July 2026 quarterly report. The extra ounces depend on King of the Hills: its Stage 1 crushing upgrade was commissioned in March 2026 and is running above its 8 Mtpa (million tonnes a year) run rate, and Stage 2 was 71% complete at the start of July and was tracking ahead of schedule for completion in September 2026. Stage 2 lifts processing capacity by about 50%.

Reserves and resources: what the numbers mean

A Mineral Resource is a concentration of material of economic interest that has reasonable prospects of being mined. An Ore Reserve is the economically mineable part of a measured or indicated resource, after allowing for mining losses and costs. Both definitions come from the JORC Code (2012), the reporting standard Australian companies follow. The reserve is always smaller than the resource, because it must pass tests on cost, metallurgy, permits and price.

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Reserve grade against reserve size

Vault operations at 30 June 2026

Price is the part many readers miss. Vault’s Western Australian reserves assume a gold price of A$3,750 per oz, and Sugar Zone’s assume C$3,563 per oz, according to the statement. The company realised A$5,557 per oz in FY26, well above that planning price. A higher price can bring more ounces into a reserve, but companies keep reserve prices conservative so a fall in the market does not wipe out the mine plan.

The 2026 update reports group reserves of 3.9 Moz, about the same as a year earlier in absolute terms; Vault describes it as a 9% rise once the 398,800 oz mined in FY26 is added back, and group resources of 12.1 Moz, level with the year before. Leonora’s reserve grew 7% after depletion, helped by a 48% increase at Darlot. Deflector’s underground reserve rose to 141 koz inside a regional total of 170 koz, and Mount Monger’s reserve rose 15% after mining depletion was counted, to 602 koz (a 4% fall in absolute terms), driven by the Rumbles open pit and the Daisy Complex. Sugar Zone is materially unchanged from 2025. Vault has set aside A$44 million for exploration in FY27 and approved 187 km of drilling.

How to work out margin per ounce and per year

The calculator below turns the numbers above into a margin. Enter ounces sold, a selling price and an AISC. It does not include tax, growth capital or royalties, so it is a screen of unit economics, not a profit forecast. Try the FY26 figures (334,901 oz, A$5,557 and A$2,924), then change the price to see how fast the margin falls if gold falls, and how little a company with an AISC near A$3,300 keeps if it drops toward the A$3,750 reserve price.

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Selling price against all-in sustaining cost

A$ per ounce of gold sold

The Genesis merger: terms and timetable

Under the proposal, Vault shareholders would receive 0.7629 new Genesis shares plus A$0.475 in cash for each Vault share, according to Genesis’s 6 July 2026 release. At Genesis’s closing price of A$6.29 on 3 July 2026 that implied A$5.2741 per Vault share and valued Vault at A$5.6 billion. The offer value moves with the Genesis share price, because most of the consideration is shares. Genesis holders would own about 59.8% of the enlarged group and Vault holders about 40.2%.

The same release says the combined group would have a pro-forma market value of A$12.6 billion, annual output of 600,000 to 700,000 oz, resources of 33.6 Moz and reserves of 9.4 Moz. Genesis built these from its own figures plus Vault’s 30 June 2025 statement, so they are not updated for the 2026 reserve statement. Genesis also says the two sets of mines sit within 35 km of each other at Leonora. It estimates synergies of about A$2.0 billion (post-tax, undiscounted, net of the Regis break fee and stamp duty), including about A$1.5 billion over ten years in pre-tax synergies that it calls unique to this combination because of the closeness of the Leonora and Bardoc-Mt Monger operations.

Vault had agreed an earlier deal with Regis Resources on 5 May 2026. Genesis’s release counts a break fee of A$50.7 million linked to ending that agreement. On 27 August 2026 Vault said the competition regulator (ACCC) had determined the scheme does not need to be notified to it, so that condition is met. The scheme still needs an independent expert to find it in the best interests of Vault shareholders, a shareholder vote and court approval, per its 27 August 2026 announcement. The Supreme Court of Western Australia ordered a scheme meeting for 9:30am AWST on 11 November 2026 in Perth, per the 5 October notice. Nothing here is a recommendation to vote or trade.

What Vault’s offer is worth per share

The second calculator values the offer at a Genesis price you choose. It uses only the published terms: 0.7629 Genesis shares and A$0.475 in cash per Vault share. Enter today’s Genesis price from the ASX, because the A$6.29 used in the default is an example from 3 July 2026.

Sugar Zone and mine land after the work stops

Sugar Zone is the one old Silver Lake asset that is not producing. Vault resumed underground development there on 1 July 2026 after submitting an amended closure plan in June, and it plans to restart the processing plant in the first quarter of FY28, per the 3 July 2026 announcement. Waste rock from the development is used to build the southern tailings facility, the dam that stores the fine waste left after gold is recovered.

A closure plan describes how land will be left when a mine stops: shaping landforms, storing waste safely, restoring vegetation and monitoring water. The AISC measure above includes rehabilitation accretion, so closure costs reach the cost of each ounce. Closure is the part of a mine’s life that sets how the land is left for later use. The video below explains the main environmental impacts of mining and how they are tracked.

▶ The seven environmental impacts of mining, explained in clay with satellite maps. · 2:31

What the changes mean for contractors and consultants

For anyone selling services to gold mines in Western Australia, the name on the contract now matters more than the history. Western Australian gold sales hit a record A$29 billion in 2024-25, on about 6.7 million troy ounces, and the industry employed 35,672 full-time equivalent workers, the second-largest on-site mining workforce, according to the Government of Western Australia’s 2024-25 statistics digest.

• Check which legal entity signed your contract. Pre-2024 Silver Lake agreements were with a company that no longer exists on the ASX list, and its parent is now Vault.
• Watch the Leonora district. Genesis states that its Leonora mines and Vault’s sit within 35 km of each other, and says the district has an endowment above 85 Moz (mined ounces plus unmined resources within 150 km of Leonora and Laverton). A combined group could change purchasing, plant use and exploration plans there.
• Watch drilling budgets. Vault’s A$44 million exploration plan and 187 km of drilling for FY27 are the work packages most likely to need drilling, sampling and geophysics support.
• Use reserve statements for scope. Mount Monger’s 602 koz reserve at 1.7 g/t and Deflector’s 170 koz at 3.1 g/t describe short to medium mine lives, so they point to ongoing near-mine exploration rather than a single long contract.

Where to find official information

For anything that drives a decision, use primary documents. Vault’s ASX announcements (code VAU) hold the quarterly reports, annual report, the Resource and Reserve Statement and the scheme booklet. Genesis publishes its own under code GMD. The old Silver Lake announcements remain in the ASX archive under the SLR code. Tenements should be checked on the relevant state or provincial register. For gold targets state by state, see our guide to gold exploration in Australia.

We also keep a shorter earlier note, latest news about Silver Lake Resources, and a map-led page on Victoria’s gold fields for readers who follow Australian gold geology more widely.

Screening ground near operating districts from space

Reserve statements show what is inside a mine. Explorers want to know what lies around it. Farmonaut turns a licence boundary into satellite-derived mineral exploration targets, which sit ahead of any resource estimate and need ground checks and drilling before anyone reports a resource. Consultants can start with a site query and read how the method works on our satellite mineral detection page. The video below explains remote sensing in plain words.

▶ Remote sensing for mining explained in three minutes. · 2:01

Frequently asked questions

Is Silver Lake Resources still listed on the ASX?

No. The company applied to be removed from the official list after the scheme was implemented on 19 June 2024, and ASX removed it from the official list on 20 June 2024. Its old code was SLR.

What is Silver Lake Resources called now?

Its shareholders became shareholders in Red 5, which was renamed Vault Minerals Limited and trades under the ASX code VAU. The legal entity Silver Lake Resources Limited is now owned by Vault.

Who owns the Mount Monger, Deflector and Sugar Zone mines?

Vault Minerals owns them. Vault reports Mount Monger and Deflector in Western Australia and Sugar Zone in Ontario, Canada, alongside its Leonora operations.

How much gold does Vault produce?

Vault produced 336,540 oz of gold in the 2026 financial year: 179,666 oz at Leonora, 79,225 oz at Mount Monger and 77,649 oz at Deflector. Sugar Zone did not produce.

How much gold is in Vault’s reserves and resources?

At 30 June 2026, Vault reported gold Ore Reserves of 3.9 million oz and Mineral Resources of 12.1 million oz. Reserves are the part shown to be economic to mine, and resources include reserves plus more material with prospects of being mined.

What is the Vault and Genesis merger?

It is a proposed scheme of arrangement in which Vault shareholders would receive 0.7629 Genesis shares plus A$0.475 in cash per Vault share. It needs an independent expert opinion, a Vault shareholder vote and court approval. The scheme meeting is scheduled for 11 November 2026.

What does AISC mean in gold mining?

All-in sustaining cost is the cost of producing and selling an ounce of gold, including the capital and exploration needed to keep a mine running. Vault’s FY26 figure was A$2,924 per oz. Methods differ slightly between companies, so compare them with care.

Did Silver Lake have a mine in Canada?

Yes. Sugar Zone in Ontario, Canada, was one of Silver Lake’s key assets in its 2024 tenement schedule. Vault restarted underground development there on 1 July 2026 and plans a plant restart in the first quarter of FY28.

Where can I check the numbers on this page?

The ASX announcements linked in the text and in the sources list are the primary documents: the 2026 Resource and Reserve Statement, the 3 July 2026 production update and the Genesis release of 6 July 2026.

Is this investment advice?

No. The page gives published facts and simple tools. It does not say whether to buy, hold or sell any security, and share prices change daily.