Northern Star Resources (ASX:NST) Share Price: Exploration Surge, Ratings and 2026 Outlook

Northern Star Resources Ltd (ASX:NST) has turned today’s news flow into a full-blown “gold + geology + ESG” story.

As of Friday, 5 December 2025, Northern Star shares are trading around the mid‑A$26 range, only a little below their 52‑week high near A$28 and well above the 52‑week low around A$15.06. ^[1] The company is now valued at roughly A$39 billion and sits at the top tier of ASX-listed gold producers. ^[2]

Today’s catalysts:

A major FY26 exploration update with A$225 million in drilling plans, unchanged despite the share price already being strong. ^[3]
Fresh high‑grade drill results across Australia and Alaska. ^[4]
A recently announced 25‑year renewable power deal at Kalgoorlie that could reshape its long‑term cost base. ^[5]
An investment‑grade credit rating reaffirmed at BBB‑ with a stable outlook. ^[6]
A flurry of valuation and technical forecasts from third‑party platforms. ^[7]

Let’s unpack what all of that means for NST stock right now.

Northern Star share price snapshot

According to recent ASX data, Northern Star has been trading around A$26.30, with Yahoo Finance showing a 5 December close at approximately A$26.32 after opening near A$26.85. ^[8]

Technical site StockInvest notes that on 4 December the stock fell 3.69% to A$26.09 and had declined for three consecutive sessions, although it remains in a strong short‑term rising trend and close to its 52‑week high of A$27.99. ^[9]

Their model:

Puts the 3‑month expected range between roughly A$32.90 and A$35.24 (about 28% upside from A$26.09),
But has downgraded NST from “Buy” to “Hold/Accumulate” on the back of recent short‑term sell signals. ^[10]

That’s a neat summary of the current mood: medium‑term optimism, short‑term wobble.

ASX exploration update: A$225m FY26 program stays intact

Northern Star’s big news today is its Exploration Update lodged with the ASX on 5 December. The headline: “Drilling continues to deliver value creating organic growth opportunities” and the company is keeping its FY26 exploration spend guidance at A$225 million. ^[11]

Key points from the update:

Exploration budget:
- FY26 exploration spend confirmed at A$225 million, unchanged, focused on organic growth and “near‑mine” targets rather than distant, speculative ground. ^[12]
KCGM (Super Pit / Fimiston & Mt Charlotte, Kalgoorlie):
- New underground areas are enabling more drilling.
- The Fimiston South mineralisation footprint now extends up to ~800m below the existing resource, hinting at deeper, longer‑life potential.
- A new Mt Charlotte prospect dubbed “Golden Goose” has been identified. ^[13]
Kalgoorlie Operations (outside KCGM):
- A new area – the Ballarat–Last Chance Project west of the Red Hill resource – has emerged as an opportunity.
- Drilling is also building confidence at the Hercules discovery. ^[14]
Yandal (Jundee / Thunderbox):
- Multiple mine‑life extension opportunities have been identified near existing infrastructure, important because near‑infrastructure ounces are usually cheaper and faster to convert into cash flow. ^[15]
Pogo (Alaska):
- Extensional drilling is highlighting high‑priority targets, reinforcing the scale of what the company calls a “world‑class system”. ^[16]
Hemi & Pilbara (new growth centre):
- Early drilling and regional programs around the recently acquired Hemi Development Project have identified growth opportunities, including success at Mt Berghaus. ^[17]

Crucially, Northern Star says its FY26 work builds on an industry‑leading cost of resource additions of about A$19 per ounce over the year to March 2025, underscoring the efficiency of its exploration spend. ^[18]

Management’s message is simple: the drill‑bit is doing its job and the company is still willing to spend heavily to grow organically.

High‑grade drill hits: Pogo and Hemi steal the geological spotlight

Proactive Investors has fleshed out the raw numbers from today’s update with some eye‑catching intercepts: ^[19]

Hemi (Pilbara, WA):
- Between the Diucon and Crow deposits, drilling has intersected:
  - ~3.6m @ 19.4 g/t gold,
  - ~2.2m @ 37.5 g/t,
  - and broader zones like ~30m @ 1.2 g/t.
- At nearby Mt Berghaus, hits such as 11m @ 4.9 g/t and 12m @ 5.6 g/t suggest potential satellite deposits within the Mallina Basin.
Pogo (Alaska):
- Underground drilling at East Deep and surface drilling at Central Link are extending known structures between the Central Lodes and the Goodpaster area.
- At the Star prospect, infill drilling returned very high grades, including intervals reported around 9.2m @ 33.1 g/t and 5.1m @ 33.9 g/t.

High‑grade intercepts near existing infrastructure are especially valuable: they tend to be fast to develop, capital‑efficient and margin‑accretive. The pattern across KCGM, Yandal, Pogo and Hemi is precisely what investors want to see from a “big gold plus growth” story – incremental tonnes that extend mine life and feed already‑built mills.

Renewable power deal: a 25‑year decarbonisation and cost story

On 4 December, Simply Wall St highlighted a major 25‑year renewable power purchase agreement (PPA) between Northern Star and Zenith Energy. Under this deal, Zenith will supply wind, solar and battery‑backed power to the Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines (KCGM) hub, which includes the Super Pit. ^[20]

Key implications:

The PPA aims to improve power security and significantly cut carbon intensity at KCGM from the late 2020s. ^[21]
It ties a core asset to long‑term, lower‑carbon energy which should help with both emissions targets and cost visibility.
It directly supports Northern Star’s stated goal to cut Scope 1 and 2 emissions by around 35% by 2030 relative to a 2020 baseline, as outlined in its FY25 sustainability suite. ^[22]

When you blend the renewable PPA with the exploration update, the message is that Northern Star is spending heavily on both growth and decarbonisation – exactly the combo many institutional investors want from a modern large‑cap miner.

Financial strength: FY25 results, cash and dividends

The FY25 financial results (year to June 2025) show why Northern Star can fund this level of activity without obviously over‑stretching itself: ^[23]

Revenue: A$6.4 billion (up ~30% year‑on‑year).
Underlying EBITDA: A$3.5 billion, implying a healthy 55% margin.
Underlying NPAT: About A$1.4 billion, more than double FY24.
Gold sold: 1.634 million ounces.
All‑in sustaining cost (AISC): Around A$2,163/oz, up from A$1,853/oz in FY24 — costs are rising, but so is the gold price.
Average realised gold price: A$3,922/oz in FY25, versus A$3,031/oz in FY24.
Cash and bullion: Around A$1.9 billion at year end.

Dividend‑wise, Northern Star declared A$0.25 per share in March and A$0.30 per share in September 2025, for a total of A$0.55 per share over the year. ^[24]

At a ~A$26–27 share price, that implies a trailing dividend yield just north of 2%, modest but backed by substantial free cash flow.

On the credit side, Fitch recently reaffirmed Northern Star’s long‑term issuer default rating at BBB‑ with a stable outlook, keeping the company in the lowest rung of investment‑grade territory. ^[25] For debt investors, that signals moderate credit risk but no near‑term expectation of a downgrade.

Growth pipeline: Hemi, KCGM mill expansion and the 2.5Moz ambition

All this exploration and spending is anchored in a fairly clear growth thesis.

The Hemi Development Project, acquired via a roughly A$5 billion takeover of De Grey Mining, is expected to be a low‑cost, large‑scale gold mine in WA’s Pilbara region. ^[26]

ABC News reports:

Hemi is expected to cost around A$1.3 billion to build,
Could have an initial 12‑year mine life,
And is forecast to help lift Northern Star’s production from about 2 million ounces per year to around 2.5 million ounces by 2028–29. ^[27]

Meanwhile, the KCGM Fimiston Mill expansion, a roughly A$1.5 billion project, is underway and is expected to increase Super Pit output to about 900,000 ounces per year later this decade. ^[28]

From the company’s own presentations and quarterly updates, the broader strategic aim is to be a long‑life, high‑margin, “bottom‑half of the cost curve” global gold producer, with multiple production centres (Kalgoorlie, Yandal, Pogo and Hemi) feeding a diversified, large‑scale portfolio. ^[29]

The 2025 environment helps: Australian‑dollar gold prices have traded at or near record levels, with ABC noting the AUD gold price briefly topped A$5,000/oz in April 2025. ^[30] That has masked some of the pressure from higher AISC.

What the models and analysts are saying about NST

If you enjoy watching other people’s spreadsheets fight, Northern Star is pure entertainment right now.

Fundamental valuation models

Simply Wall St narrative & forecast:
- Projects A$9.1 billion revenue and about A$2.0 billion in earnings by 2028, up from A$6.4 billion revenue in FY25. ^[31]
- Their “narrative” fair‑value estimate sits around A$27.39 per share, which is roughly 5% above the current price. ^[32]
- Community fair‑value estimates on the same platform range from roughly A$13.56 to A$58.16, clustering in the A$22–36 band — a reminder that reasonable people can wildly disagree. ^[33]
Yahoo Finance / DCF‑style estimate:
- A recent article (via search snippet) put the “projected fair value” at about A$46.15 per share, suggesting the stock might be trading at close to a 49% discount to that particular model. ^[34]
- That’s highly sensitive to assumptions about long‑term gold prices, discount rates and production profiles.

These models broadly agree on one thing: if gold stays strong and the growth pipeline is executed cleanly, there’s upside. The disagreement is about how much.

Analyst ratings and price targets

TipRanks reports that the most recent analyst rating on Northern Star is “Buy” with a A$30.00 price target. ^[35]
- Versus a ~A$26–27 share price, that implies roughly 10–15% upside on that one broker’s numbers.
- TipRanks also lists a “Buy” technical sentiment and a market cap of about A$38.8 billion. ^[36]

Other broker coverage (where accessible) broadly frames Northern Star as a quality, large‑scale gold producer with execution risk around its big capital projects and integration of Hemi.

Technical views

As noted earlier, StockInvest has just downgraded NST from “Buy” to “Hold/Accumulate”, citing: ^[37]
- Short‑term sell signals,
- A recent pivot‑top,
- And a MACD‑based warning.
However, the same model still expects the share price to rise about 28% over the next three months, with a forecast range between ~A$32.90 and A$35.24, and characterises risk as “medium”. ^[38]

Again, you get the same pattern: constructive medium‑term, wobbly short‑term.

Key risks investors should keep in mind

Even a gold “star” comes with caveats:

Gold price risk
Northern Star’s profits are extremely sensitive to the gold price. With AUD gold recently above A$5,000/oz and realised prices of about A$3,922/oz in FY25, margins look great; but a sustained drop would bite quickly, especially with AISC climbing from A$1,853/oz to A$2,163/oz year‑on‑year. ^[39]
Project execution & cost inflation
- The A$1.5 billion KCGM mill expansion and the A$1.3 billion Hemi build are big, multi‑year projects in an inflationary environment. ^[40]
- Delays or cost blow‑outs could erode the upside that current valuation models are baking in.
Integration risk from acquisitions
2025 has seen Northern Star digest De Grey (Hemi) and continue active portfolio management. While scale is good, more moving parts mean more things that can go sideways — especially when the market is watching production and capex guidance closely. ^[41]
Operational and jurisdictional risk
- Pogo is in Alaska, Hemi in the Pilbara, and there are multiple underground operations in WA. These involve complex geology, long supply chains and stringent environmental and regulatory regimes. ^[42]
- ESG expectations are rising; Northern Star’s renewable PPA and emissions targets help, but any serious incident or approval delay would be punished.
Valuation dispersion
When one model says “5% upside”, another “49% upside”, and a technical model says “Hold but maybe +28% in three months”, what you really have is parameter uncertainty. ^[43] Your outcome will depend heavily on your own assumptions about gold, capex discipline and the timing of new ounces.

Bottom line: what today’s news means for Northern Star shares

Putting everything together, the 5 December 2025 picture for Northern Star Resources looks like this:

Operationally, the company just doubled down on A$225 million of FY26 exploration, with strong early results at KCGM, Pogo and Hemi that support longer mine lives and potential production growth. ^[44]
Strategically, the Hemi acquisition plus the KCGM mill expansion and the renewable power deal are reshaping Northern Star into a larger, more diversified, lower‑carbon producer – if execution goes to plan. ^[45]
Financially, FY25 numbers show strong margins, rising dividends and a sizeable cash/bullion position, supported by record‑ish AUD gold prices. ^[46]
From the market’s perspective, third‑party models mostly lean constructively bullish on the medium term, even as some short‑term technical indicators flash amber rather than green. ^[47]

None of this guarantees future returns. It does, however, make Northern Star one of the most closely watched “quality‑growth” gold names on the ASX — a stock where geology, decarbonisation, macro gold prices and big‑ticket project execution are all pulling on the same rope.