However, Goldfield’s managing director Peter Cassidy is downplaying rumours of a takeover bid.

“We currently have three corporations sitting on our board - Harmony Gold [18%], St Barbara [10%] and Henson Plc [7%],” he said. “There is potential they could be interested, but in six months none of them have made any moves.”

English building materials company Henson Plc – once 28% owner of Goldfields - recently launched a takeover of Australian building company Pioneer.

“St Barbara has conveyed to the board it would be interested in seeking 20% and a director on the board, but I suggest you take a close look at its bank balance and make up your own mind,” Cassidy said.

“As far as I know, there is nothing else on the horizon.”

High-grade intersections such as 1.82m at 52.9 grams per tonne of gold, 1.24m at 167gpt gold and 0.85m at 207gpt gold demonstrated the continuity and increased width of the Raleigh deposit, located 2.5km south of Kundana.

“The reaction from brokers has been really positive,” Cassidy said.

“We are looking forward to the next round of announcements, which will be out in about 6-8 weeks.”

Goldfield’s shares are trading heavily in the market today, fluctuating between $1.46 and $1.50.

“On a usual day, Goldfield’s has a volume of 500,000 of the stock go through the market,” Cassidy said.

“Today we reached that mark by mid-morning.”

Latest drilling results also confirm the laminated high-grade quartz vein continues below the 90m level, previously reported in July, to at least 240m below surface and remains open at depth.

The 11 drill intercepts assayed an average vein true width of 0.9-1m, a significant increase on the previous estimate of 0.31m for the northern resource portion of Raleigh.

These results also extend the surface strike length of the Raleigh vein by 40m to a total of 640m.

Cassidy said the company hopes to extend the Raleigh deposits mine-life by at least 4-5 years.

“This last lot of results indicates we have a resource of at least 500,000 ounces,” he said.

About 280m of the Raleigh vein lies on the East Kundana joint venture tenements, from which Goldfields, through its recent takeover of Gilt Edged Mining NL, is earning a 51% interest from Rand Mining and Tribune Resources.

At the time of writing, Rand’s share price had increased 4c to 70c and Tribune’s stock had risen 7c to 45c.