Great Southern Mining has charged into the new financial year with $4 million in the bank from the sale of a mining licence to Regis Resources, which could ultimately deliver another $5 million in contingent payments.
The timely payday has now given the explorer the ammunition to launch an aggressive 12,000 to 15,000 metre drill program at its Duketon gold project in Western Australia’s Laverton district.
With drill rigs at the ready, the immediate focus will be on two standout prospects called Golden Boulder and Amy Clarke, both of which have recorded shallow, high-grade intercepts and serious strike potential.
Golden Boulder sits on the same north-south structural corridor that already hosts multi-million-ounce deposits such as Regis’ Rosemont, Baneygo and Ben Hur. The prospect is also dotted with more than 50 historical workings and has historically reported almost 1,800 ounces mined by the old timers at an eye-watering 28.6 grams per tonne (g/t) back in the early 1900s.
If history is anything to go buy, these old-timers almost always left something behind and Great Southern Mining is in a prime position to hunt down what else lurks beneath.
Recent drilling at the prospect has added extra weight to the exploration potential, with best results including 5m grading 14.57 g/t gold from 41m, including a 1m section running at 70.94 g/t. Two other deeper hits came in with 2m going at 12.56 g/t gold from 99m and a 4m intercept grading 5.64 g/t from 63m.
Exploration results have already outlined continuous mineralisation across 650m of strike, with distinct gold showings stretching out as far as 1.6 kilometres. Notably, a further 1.4km of southern strike, known as the Gold Finger prospect, has just been cleared of heritage restrictions and is now drill-ready.
The Amy Clarke prospect sits a few kilometres to the north of Golden Boulder and is also shaping as a potential company-maker. Soil sampling and broad-spaced aircore drilling have mapped out a five-kilometre-long gold anomaly lying on the same structural trend as Regis Resources’ nearby 320,000-ounce Erlistoun mine.
Drilling work by Great Southern in 2021 at site has already produced a taste of things to come with hits such as 8m grading 6.73 g/t gold from 32m, including a 4m slice running at 12.5 g/t and 4m going at 2.13 g/t gold from surface.
A new 7,000m aircore campaign at Amy Clarke will now step up the pressure, testing a six-kilometre corridor for near-surface mineralisation and continuity.
Backing up the two headline prospects Great Southern also has a raft of more than a dozen other defined targets ready to be tested across its 421 square kilometre Duketon landholding. Ranging from advanced resource definition plays to early-stage geochemical anomalies, the company says it is chomping at the bit to test out this string of prospects with the truth teller in 2026.
Great Southern Mining managing director Matthew Keane said: “Great Southern enters FY26 from a position of strength. At our 100%-owned Duketon gold project, we are focused on two standout prospects – Golden Boulder and Amy Clarke – both hosting shallow, high grade drill intercepts along more than 8 km of collective prospective strike.”
While Duketon is currently grabbing the spotlight, Great Southern and its heavyweight joint venture partner, South African giant Gold Fields, have rolled the dice on a high-impact diamond drilling campaign at Edinburgh Park in Far North Queensland. The global major is earning its stripes by testing two big-ticket induced polarisation targets – Leichhardt Creek and Mt Dillon – both carrying the fingerprints of large-scale intrusion-related gold-copper-silver systems.
Armed with cash, cleared ground and a hungry drill rig, Great Southern Mining looks set for a defining run at Duketon. And with the gold price continue to hover near record highs, the timing could hardly be better.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By James Pearson
