Kia ora Suze,

 

We acknowledge receipt of your official information request received by us
dated 16 May 2025 for:

* On February 2, 2025, Peter Christophers received a document from Mary
Askey of Santana Minerals entitled 'Draft Regional Rules Assessment'.
* On February 28, 2025, Peter Christophers received a document entitled
'Commercially Sensitive Bendigo-Ophir Exploration for Gold Project
(Santana Minerals and Matakanui Gold).
* There is reference to a number of meetings with Santana Minerals in
our reply - send through any materials - documentation, presentations,
meeting minutes, recordings etc resulting from these meetings.
* Any/all correspondence ORC has had with Santana Minerals / Matakanui
Gold about the Bendigo Ophir Mine development, including, but not
limited to, emails, meetings, phone conversations, presentations,
reports etc from 3 April 2025 until present day.
* Any/all emails / papers / reports etc describing preparations ORC has
made for the Bendigo Ophir mine application from 3 April 2025 until
present day.

We will endeavour to respond to your request as soon as possible and in
any event no later than 16 June 2025, being 20 working days after the day
your request was received. If we are unable to respond to your request by
then, we will notify you of an extension of that timeframe.

 

If you have any queries, please contact us by return email. If any
additional factors come to light which are relevant to your request,
please contact us so that these can be taken into account.

Kā mihi, 

Josh

Legal

[1][IMG] [2][email address]

[3][IMG][4][IMG][5][IMG]

Important notice

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to legal privilege. If you are not the intended recipient, you must not
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you have received this in error, please notify us immediately by return
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Council accepts no responsibility for changes made to this email or to any
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you.

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Kia ora Suze,

 

I refer to your official information request received via FYI titled
‘Bendigo-Ophir Mine - Santana Minerals - 4th request’ being a request by
you about the Bendigo Ophir gold mining project proposed by Santana
Minerals in which you request copies of:

o The document entitled 'Draft Regional Rules Assessment' that Mary
Askey of Santana Minerals sent to Peter Christophers on February 2,
2025;
o The document entitled 'Commercially Sensitive Bendigo-Ophir
Exploration for Gold Project (Santana Minerals and Matakanui Gold)
that was received by Peter Christophers on February 28, 2025;
o Any Materials* from meetings with Santana Minerals referred in our
previous LGOIMA release to you (materials being documentation,
presentations, meeting minutes, recordings etc resulting from these
meetings); and
o any/all correspondence we have had with Santana Minerals/Matakanui
Gold about the Bendigo Ophir Mine development, including, but not
limited to, emails, meetings, phone conversations, presentations,
reports etc; and any/all emails / papers / reports etc describing
preparations ORC has made for the Bendigo Ophir mine application that
we have had from 3 April 2025 until the present day.

 

We are required under the Local Government Official Information and
Meetings Act 1987 to advise you of our decision on your request no later
than 20 working days after the day we received your request.

Unfortunately, it will not be possible to meet that time limit and we are
therefore writing to notify you that our response to your request will be
late.

 

We apologise that our response will be late. Your request has been
escalated to James who is a senior member of the legal team. We expect to
be able release it to you by next Thursday 19 June 2025.

 

If you wish to discuss this with us, please contact me by return email.

You have the right to seek an investigation and review by the Ombudsman of
this decision. Information about how to make a complaint is available at
[1]www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or freephone 0800 802 602.

 

Kā mihi, 

Janet

 

 
[2]ORC Janet Ashcroft 
[3]Follow ORC on
Facebook[4]Follow ORC Kaiwawao ā-ture | Legal Counsel
on LinkedIn[5]Follow Legal
ORC on YouTube [6]+64272800909 | [7][email address] 
 
Important notice
This email contains information which is confidential and may be subject
to legal privilege. If you are not the intended recipient, you must not
peruse, use, disseminate, distribute or copy this email or attachments. If
you have received this in error, please notify us immediately by return
email or telephone (03 474-0827) and delete this email. The Otago Regional
Council accepts no responsibility for changes made to this email or to any
attachments following the original transmission from its offices. Thank
you.

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Kia ora Suze, 

 

A partial release of your official information request received on 16 May
2025 is attached, being: 

o the ‘Commercially Sensitive Bendigo-Ophir Exploration for Gold Project
(Santana Minerals and Matakanui Gold’), and
o all correspondences from 3 April 2025 until the present day (16 May
2025, day of request). 

 

Information has been redacted (withheld) from this information in order to
protect the privacy of natural persons pursuant to section 7(2)(a) of the
Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987 (the Act).  

 

We continue to work through the remaining part of your request; for
meetings information and for the ‘Draft Regional Rules Assessment'. You
will be advised as soon as we are able to respond to you on those
remaining matters and we will endeavour to do so before 27 June 2025.

 

We acknowledge that this response falls outside the statutory timeframe
required under the Act.

We apologise for the delay in providing this information and appreciate
your patience. 

 

You have the right to seek an investigation and review by the Ombudsman of
this decision. Information about how to make a complaint is available at
[1]www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or freephone 0800 802 602. 

 

If you wish to discuss this decision with us, please feel free to contact
us by return email.  

 

 

Kā mihi, 

Josh & Janet

 

 
[2]ORC Official Information
[3][email address] 

[4][IMG] [5][IMG] [6][IMG]  .
 
Important notice
This email contains information which is confidential and may be subject
to legal privilege. If you are not the intended recipient, you must not
peruse, use, disseminate, distribute or copy this email or attachments. If
you have received this in error, please notify us immediately by return
email or telephone (03 474-0827) and delete this email. The Otago Regional
Council accepts no responsibility for changes made to this email or to any
attachments following the original transmission from its offices. Thank
you.

 

An email was received from Customer Services - In on 16/05/2025 from
[7][FOI #30995 email]

Subject: Official Information request - Bendigo-Ophir Mine - Santana
Minerals - 4th request

Tena koe Otago Regional Council,

Thank you for your reply to my third request about the Bendigo Ophir gold
mining project proposed by Santana Minerals made on April 2, 2025.

I have two questions relating to this request which appears incomplete:

o on February 2, 2025, Peter Christophers received a document from Mary
Askey of Santana Minerals entitled 'Draft Regional Rules Assessment'.
o on February 28, 2025, Peter Christophers received a document entitled
'Commercially Sensitive Bendigo-Ophir Exploration for Gold Project
(Santana Minerals and Matakanui Gold).
o There is reference to a number of meetings with Santana Minerals in
your reply - can you please send through any materials -
documentation, presentations, meeting minutes, recordings etc
resulting from these meetings.
o None of these documents have been included in your response - please
send through a copy of these. Given this response was due before May
5, I expect to receive a reply promptly.
o In addition, please send me:
o any/all correspondence ORC has had with Santana Minerals / Matakanui
Gold about the Bendigo Ophir Mine development, including, but not
limited to, emails, meetings, phone conversations, presentations,
reports etc
o any/all emails / papers / reports etc describing preparations ORC has
made for the Bendigo Ophir mine application.
o That you have from 3 April 2025 until present day.
o I hope that given these are repeat requests, we hear back from you
well before the 20 working days deadline; that there is no need to
request an extension; and that personal details are redacted - mine
included.
o Nga mihi,

Suze

This is an Official Information request made via the FYI website.

Please use this email address for all replies to this request:

[8][FOI #30995 email]

Is [9][Otago Regional Council request email] the wrong address for Official Information requests
to Otago Regional Council? If so, please contact us using this form:

[10]https://fyi.org.nz/changerequest/new?bod...

Disclaimer: This message and any reply that you make will be published on
the internet. Our privacy and copyright policies:

[11]https://fyi.org.nz/help/officers

If you find this service useful as an Official Information officer, please
ask your web manager to link to us from your organisation's OIA or LGOIMA
page.

 

 

 
[12]ORC Josh Connell 
[13]Follow ORC on
Facebook[14]Follow ORC Official Information and Legal Support Advisor
on LinkedIn[15]Follow Legal
ORC on YouTube [16]+64272258112 | [17][email address] 
 
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to legal privilege. If you are not the intended recipient, you must not
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you have received this in error, please notify us immediately by return
email or telephone (03 474-0827) and delete this email. The Otago Regional
Council accepts no responsibility for changes made to this email or to any
attachments following the original transmission from its offices. Thank
you.

References

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17. mailto:[email address]

Kia ora,

 

We refer to the balance of your official information request, received by
us on 16 May 2025, for a copy of the 'Draft Regional Rules Assessment'

 

We are refusing your request under section 7(2)(b)(ii) of the of the Local
Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987:

Section 7 Other reasons for withholding official information (2) this
section applies if, and only if, the withholding of the information is
necessary to—(c) protect information which is subject to an obligation of
confidence or which any person has been or could be compelled to provide
under the authority of any enactment, where the making available of the
information— (ii) would be likely unreasonably to prejudice the
commercial position of the person who supplied or who is the subject of
the information.

 

We acknowledge that this response falls outside the statutory timeframe
required under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act
1987. We apologise for the delay in providing this information and
appreciate your patience. 

 

You have the right to seek an investigation and review by the Ombudsman of
this decision. Information about how to make a complaint is available at
[1]www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or freephone 0800 802 602. 

 

If you wish to discuss this decision with us, please feel free to contact
us by return email.  

 

Naomi & Janet

 

 

 

 
[2]ORC Official Information
[3][email address] 

[4][IMG] [5][IMG] [6][IMG]  .
 
Important notice
This email contains information which is confidential and may be subject
to legal privilege. If you are not the intended recipient, you must not
peruse, use, disseminate, distribute or copy this email or attachments. If
you have received this in error, please notify us immediately by return
email or telephone (03 474-0827) and delete this email. The Otago Regional
Council accepts no responsibility for changes made to this email or to any
attachments following the original transmission from its offices. Thank
you.

 

References

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6. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC77y56i...

Kia ora Suze,

We refer to your 4th official information request regarding the
Bendigo-Ophir Gold Project, received by us 16 May 2025.

As part of that request, you asked for a copy of the Draft Regional Rules
Assessment. We withheld this document in accordance with the following
grounds under LGOIMA:

* S 7(2)(b)(ii) – that release of the information would be likely
unreasonably to prejudice the commercial position of the person who
supplied the information;
* S 7(2)(c) – that the information is subject to an obligation of
confidence; and
* S 17(d) – that the information requested is or will soon be publicly
available

You asked us to clarify our decision. On review we have determined that we
should not have withheld the Draft Regional Rules Assessment and have
determined to now release that document.

A copy of the Draft Regional Rules Assessment is attached.

As discussed with you, alongside this review, we also reviewed our
decision to withhold Technical Reports related to the Bendigo-Ophir Gold
Project. On review we have determined that we should not have withheld the
Technical Reports and have determined to now also release those documents.
The Technical Reports can be found here: [1]​Folder icon[2] LGOIMA 469 -
Santana Technical Reports. Please let us know if there are any issues with
access.

Finally we note that your 6th LGOIMA request is underway and while we are
working to ensure that this is completed promptly, we may need to consider
an extension to allow for consultations. We will be back in touch with you
should that be necessary.

Kā mihi nui,

Finn and Janet

Legal

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you have received this in error, please notify us immediately by return
email or telephone (03 474-0827) and delete this email. The Otago Regional
Council accepts no responsibility for changes made to this email or to any
attachments following the original transmission from its offices. Thank
you.

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