Exploratory drilling finished recently at Tatyoon, with results from the project to come in June.

Navarre Minerals managing director Geoff McDermott said the site was chosen due to its similarity to the Stawell mine.

"Stawell is our model for the region, and (at Tatyoon) we've been able to identify rocks and formations that are similar," he said.

"You'd hope (this deposit) is the same. (Stawell) is a five million-ounce ore body, which is a lot in gold terms."

Mr McDermott said if the estimates were accurate, it could be a similar-size project to Stawell in terms of employment as well.

"In its heyday it had 300-400 people employed directly," he said.

"Then, when you include the contractors and all those that hang on, it could be 100 people sort of there as well."

Navarre holds an exploratory licence for an area 1.5-kilometre long, but would need to go through a similar planning process to the recently denied new open-cut mine for Stawell to get the project up and running.

The Canadian company behind that project, Crocodile Gold, provided $200,000 in funding to the exploration.

Crocodile is also Navarre's largest shareholder.

Mr McDermott said the new state government seemed 'friendly enough' to mining projects, and praised its new target grant program.

"The Victorian government has come out with this incentive program for kick-starting exploration in Victoria, with a focus on copper and gold," he said.

Resources Minister Lily D'Ambrosio has also promised to look again at the Stawell open-cut proposal if environmental concerns were addressed, despite the project being knocked back twice already.

A geologist is now going through the samples taken from Tatyoon to determine which to send away for further detailed analysis.

If a significant enough concentration of gold is found, Mr McDermott said the whole planning process would then begin.