Bulls N’ Bears Big Hits rounds up this week’s hottest drill intercepts reported to the ASX, headlined by Solstice Minerals’ monster copper-gold hit at Nanadie in WA, followed by Kantra Copper’s deep Nugent strike in South Australia and a cracking new high-grade rare earths discovery from Brazilian Rare Earths in Brazil. So, let's dive in.
SOLSTICE MINERALS (ASX: SLS)
Project: Nanadie copper-gold project, Western Australia
Hit: 169.3m at 0.87 per cent copper and 0.29g/t gold
Solstice Minerals has thrown another sizeable log on the fire at its Nanadie copper-gold project, 95 kilometres southeast of Meekatharra in Western Australia, punching out a hefty 169.3-metre intersection grading 0.87 per cent copper and 0.29 grams per tonne (g/t) gold. The combined reverse circulation (RC) and diamond drill hole included a stronger 73.3 metre section running at 1.07 per cent copper and 0.26g/t gold from 299m.
Within that zone, the drill reamed out 8m assaying 2.12 per cent copper and 0.45g/t gold from 309m, together with a further 6.3m going at 2.65 per cent copper and 0.46g/t gold from 366m.
Not content with those runs, the same hole added another wrinkle to the story by continuing east of the anticipated gabbro contact to nail a further 4.6-metre run at 1.65 per cent copper and 0.26g/t gold from 499.4m, followed by 24.9m grading 0.56 per cent copper and 0.24g/t gold from 509.7m depth.
Solstice believes that deeper position - east of the expected gabbro contact - could represent an emerging eastern mineralised zone.
This week’s headline intercept also provides excellent continuity with adjoining RC holes with diamond tails, which delivered breakthrough runs, including 629m at 0.5 per cent copper and 0.17g/t to end-of-hole, to combine with last month’s Big Hits headline hole.
This is not the first time that Solstice has graced these august pages. Almost exactly one month ago, the company grabbed second place in our brief compendium of big hitters after knocking the ball out of the park with a whopping copper-gold drillhole at Nanadie that screamed real scale.
That earlier RC and diamond-tail hole bored clean through an eye-watering 722.3 metres grading 0.44 per cent copper and 0.13 grams per tonne gold, stretching from the margin of the granite on the western side of the host gabbro all the way to end-of-hole.
Remarkably, the intercept included all unmineralised intervals, late dykes and lower-grade material, while also yielding several higher-grade intervals, including 79.9m at 0.47 per cent copper and 0.19g/t gold from 362.8m and 89.3m at 0.64 per cent copper and 0.17g/t gold from 504.7m.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch and on the same section-line as this week’s 169.3-metre intersection, a new step-back diamond tail drillhole also delivered widespread mineralisation, with results including 23.9m grading 0.76 per cent copper and 0.23g/t gold from 342.9m.
The same hole also returned 24.9m assaying 0.50 per cent copper and 0.14g/t gold from 425.1m and another 23m running 0.46 per cent copper and 0.12g/t gold from 461m. A further chunk of 5.8m going one per cent copper and 2.43g/t gold took the drill bit to termination, including 1m grading 0.80 per cent copper and a somewhat astonishing 12.71g/t gold from 565m.
Solstice says both holes reported in its most recent announcement intersected significant copper-gold mineralisation at more than 300m below the current mineral resource envelope.
The Nanadie copper-gold deposit is currently underpinned by a JORC-compliant inferred mineral resource estimate of 40.4Mt grading 0.4 per cent copper, 0.1g/t gold and 1g/t silver, for 162,000 tonnes of contained copper, 130,000 ounces of gold and 1.36 million ounces of silver.
The company has also pushed its drilling north, with step-out work extending the known mineralised system to at least 1.5 kilometres of strike. Nanadie remains open to the north, south and at depth.
The scale of this week’s headline intercept is only part of the appeal. Solstice’ two higher-grade copper-gold cores sit within a much broader mineralised envelope, giving the company serious headline heft and a host of useful geological cues for follow-up drilling.
The eight-metre intercept assaying 2.12 per cent copper and 0.45g/t gold from 309m, together with a further 6.3m going 2.65 per cent copper and 0.46g/t gold from 366m, shows the system can produce materially stronger grades rather than relying solely on a long run of lower-grade copper.
That combination could become important as the company works to connect the northern step-outs, the deep mineralisation below the resource and the developing deeper eastern position, giving the company another target as it works to establish just how big the Nanadie system might become.
Each success adds another dimension to Nanadie’s growth case, while further drilling will be needed to establish continuity and determine how much of the expanded footprint can ultimately be folded into a future resource update.
Solstice Minerals’ typical RC drill samples from this week’s headline hole at Nanadie, depicting the limited oxidation profile below the shallow sandy soils. The hole was extended with a diamond core tail.
KANTRA COPPER (ASX: KAN)
Project: Kanmantoo copper mine, South Australia
Hit: 70m at 1.18 per cent copper and 0.24g/t gold from 507m downhole
Kantra Copper has delivered a meaty copper-gold intersection from underground drilling at its Kanmantoo copper mine in South Australia, with the drill bit boring through 70m grading 1.18 per cent copper and 0.24g/t gold from 507m downhole.
The intercept included 38m running at 1.46 per cent copper and 0.18g/t gold from 507m downhole, followed by 9m at 0.67 per cent copper and 0.21g/t gold from 546m, and another 21m grading 0.96 per cent copper and 0.37g/t gold from 556m.
The result has particular significance because drilling has now confirmed continuity of the Nugent mineralised system, 70m below the boundary of Kantra’s 2025 mineral resource estimate. It places the mineralisation some 370m below the current stoping horizon at the mine’s 950 Level and provides further evidence that Nugent remains alive at depth.
The current mineral resource estimate for Kantra’s Kanmantoo copper mine project stands at 22 million tonnes at 0.74 per cent copper and 0.17g/t gold, bringing the total contained resource to an estimated 162,800 tonnes of copper and 120,000 ounces of gold.
Within that broader footprint, the project also carries an ore reserve of four million tonnes grading 0.85 per cent copper and 0.22g/t gold.
Kantra says the Nugent lode sits on the south-western edge of the Kanmantoo deposit and comprises a structurally controlled mineralised corridor containing discrete mineralised pods along strike.
The latest deep diamond drilling was designed to extend that lode beneath the existing resource drilling, and the results appear to have done just that.
BRAZILIAN RARE EARTHS (ASX: BRE)
Project: Sulista rare earths district, Bahia, Brazil
Hit: 9m at 4.6 per cent TREO from 99.7m depth
Brazilian Rare Earths (BRE) has unveiled a fresh high-grade rare earths discovery at Sulista South, 80 kilometres southwest of Monte Alto, in Brazil’s Bahia State, adding another mineralised zone to its expanding Sulista district.
The results came from a stage one exploration diamond drilling and prospecting campaign at Sulista South, 800m south of Sulista East, alongside ongoing infill and step-out drilling at the Sulista East deposit.
Exploration drilling at Sulista South, which totalled 13 holes for 1674 metres, tested the continuity of mineralisation along a major southwesterly extension of the estimated 7.5km long Sulista East trend. Assays have been received for eight drill holes while results for another five holes are pending.
Diamond drilling at the new discovery has returned multiple stacked mineralised seams across roughly 500m of strike, with grades regularly topping four per cent total rare earth oxides (TREO) and a peak sub-interval reaching 13.3 per cent TREO.
Among the broader results, a solid nine-metre intercept from the headline hole graded 4.6 per cent TREO from 99.7m, while a second hole gave up 8m at 4.4 per cent TREO from 44.5m, including 6m at 5.1 per cent TREO from 45.5m downhole depth.
A third hole produced 6.8m at 4.7 per cent TREO from 63.3m, including 4.1m grading 6 per cent TREO.
The company says that combined with extension drilling further north, it has now intersected 3km of mineralised strike along the greater Sulista trend. However, the intervening 800-metre zone of potential strike continuity between Sulista East and Sulista South appears to remain largely untested at this stage.
The discovery consists of multiple steeply-inclined mineralised seams within granite gneiss. The company says textures in the drill core indicate a mineral-rich melt moving through the host rock in successive pulses, an interpretation it is using to guide its search for new mineralised zones.
Brazilian Rare Earths says the campaign has strengthened confidence in its Sulista East geological model, extended mineralisation beyond the current mineral resource footprint and has tested new high-grade targets across the broader Sulista system.
The current mineral resource estimate for the Sulista East zone, as of its August 2026 update, stands at 8.2 million tonnes split across a JORC-compliant indicated resource of 2.1 million tonnes grading 2.6 per cent TREO and an inferred resource of 6.1 million tonnes grading 2 per cent TREO.
Importantly for this evolving story, there could still be plenty more rock for the diamond drill rigs to chew through, with more ground along the southern corridor still untested as the company works towards an updated Sulista mineral resource.
For the purposes of Big Hits, it's the combination of solid widths, punchy TREO grades and a fresh discovery that earns Brazilian Rare Earths its ticket into this week’s top three.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
