The underground mine, located 10km south of Rosebury in Tasmania's West Coast, has produced about 1.2 million ounces of gold in its 16-year mine life.

Back in 2009, Henty's future looked bleak.

It was a smaller asset in Barrick Gold's portfolio and with the major gold producer having little intention to dedicate an exploration team to prove up resources the company had planned to close Henty down and put it on the map as a trophy for successful environmental rehabilitation.

Henty's fate turned around, however, when Unity, at the time named Bendigo Mining, swooped in and acquired the operation in hopes of extending its mine life beyond Barrick's predicted six months.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Fast forward to June 2012 and Unity is weeks away from marking the three year anniversary of the Henty purchase.

As its flagship asset, Unity has been dedicated to Henty from day one.

The company injected $A3.8 million to upgrade the underground mining fleet in 2010 and has managed to grow the mine life from half a year on purchase to a sizeable five years after growing resources to 326,000oz and boosting reserves to 121,000oz.

Unity managing director Andrew McIlwain said the success of the Henty operation to date was a testament to its dedicated team of more than 160 employees.

"Unity clearly saw an opportunity where there had been little focus and expenditure on extending mine reserves," McIlwain told reporters on site.

"Justifiably, the team are really proud of what they've got here."

Production at the 800m deep operation for the March 2012 quarter came in at 11,357oz, putting Unity on track to produce 50,000oz of gold in the upcoming financial year.

Cash costs are expected to tip in just below $1000/oz mark, which is slightly above the record $757/oz cash cost achieved in the December quarter.

General mine manager Matt Daly puts this down to the mining of lower grade ore in the past few months but says the company hopes to lower cash costs in the near-term.

With ownership of the mine changing hands about five times during its life, Daly said Unity's acquisition of the operation "was the best thing that could have ever happened to Henty"

"We've got a company that wants to grow the resource," he said.

With a dedicated drilling team consisting of 12 geoscientists, exploration is proving to be the heart and soul of Henty's future.

Part of Henty's growth over the last few years can be attributed to the recent discovery of the Newton zone, which was underpinned by a $10 million per annum exploration program.

While Unity exploration head Angela Lorrigan said there was plenty of mine life left in the Newton zone, exploration upside was tipped to come from the newly discovered Read zone, located behind the Henty fault.

Drilling at the zone to date has demonstrated the continuity of high grade mineralisation.

Lorrigan said the region was promising and expected to produce ounces from the Read zone sometime in the next financial year.

With the pipeline to growth at Henty proving well and truly alive, Unity is in an enviable position.

"The cash making operation is a key component of the Unity idea going forward because it provides us with operating credibility," McIlwain said.

With cash at hand currently standing at around $48 million, the Unity story, according to McIlwain is only just beginning.

McIlwain knows that to retain the company's attractive balance sheet, merger and acquisition activity must be considered.

According to EL and C Baillieu analyst Adrian Prendergast, opportunities for Unity will emerge from acquisitions.

"The current value of Unity is underpinned by it sustaining production at Henty while the lion share of its potential remains heavily skewed towards merger and acquisition opportunities," Prendergast said in a report this week.

McIlwain said the company was assessing gold purchases in west and central Africa, an area it is already active in through its 34% stake in AIM-listed Goldstone Resources.

"We have a number of irons in the fire," he said.

Unity is also eyeing acquisition opportunities around Australia but will veer away from Victoria due to encountering struggles at its troubled Bendigo assets, which are being acquired by Catalyst Metals.

"Our clear preference is gold, preferably somewhere in Australia where we can transport our operating capabilities from Henty but we would not rule out west Africa, where there are logical synergies with our investment in Goldstone," McIlwain said.

The Henty acquisition has set up Unity to achieve golden rewards, which don't seem to be abating any time soon.

Huddling around the pouring of a Henty gold bar, which McIlwain estimated to be worth about $240,000, it is clear there will be plenty more gold bars to come.

"We have lots of opportunities to make sensible investment decisions to further Henty's success -whether that be adding some additional grinding capacity in the mill or a bit of stripping the decline to fit a bigger, more efficient truck in - and these will get done," McIlwain said.