Strickland Metals is picking up the pace at its south Serbian Rogozna gold and base metals project which includes a further 20,000m of drilling at its Gradina target and a slew of new middle managers that are capable of guiding it all the way into production.
The company’s pre-development programs have now been expanded to include environmental baseline surveys, the opening of a local office, well-advanced metallurgical studies and ongoing drilling by six rigs across three targets as a decision to go mining looms at the 7.4m ounce gold equivalent project.
The new key new management appointments will advance the company’s mining and environmental studies and complement its 40 local Serbian staff.
Three new management appointments include Sarai Tautari as Community Relations Manager who spent 19 years in similar roles at Twiggy Forrest’s Fortescue, one of Australia’s biggest mining companies.
Her appointment is supported by Strickland’s recent opening of a community relations office in the town of Novi Pazar, about 10km from the Rogozna project.
As a first pass in the community relations stakes, Strickland says it has already undertaken a 2000 tree-planting program at Rogozna, with another program planned for mid-year.
A second appointment to the expanding management crew is Mark Mantle, an engineer with more than 30 years of experience across multiple continents with groups such as Minproc Engineers, Ausenco, DRA, St Barbara, Newmont and Mineral Resources.
Mantle has been involved with early-stage scoping through to construction delivery and operations management.
Ben Pearson has also been tapped to fill the role of Environmental and Permitting Manager as Strickland gets ready to tick the ESG box along the pathway to production.
The company recently engaged Serbian environmental consulting company Envico to continue baseline studies across the project area which will expand on previous baseline surveys undertaken between 2020 and 2023 that assessed biodiversity, surface water, geomorphology, soil chemistry and land use.
Strickland Metals Managing Director Paul L’Herpiniere said: “As part of what is shaping up to be a pivotal year of growth at the Rogozna Project in 2025, we have recently expanded our leadership team to manage the key areas of community relations, mining studies, environmental and sustainability studies. These new appointments complement our exceptional local team of 40 Serbian staff, making our local subsidiary, Zlatna Reka Resources, one of the most active explorers in the region.”
Strickland says its updated metallurgical testwork for the Shanac deposit is about 50% complete, while recently updated testwork on the Medenovac deposit is about 30% complete.
Previous metallurgical studies and tests at each of the Rogozna deposits show positive results with clear pathways for high metal recoveries from processing, while additional bulk sample material from the Gradina deposit has arrived at ALS’ Laboratory in Perth, with metallurgical test work to begin next week.
The Rogozna project comprises four exploration licences which embrace an area of about 184 square kilometres. Strickland says the project has the potential to become one of the biggest undeveloped gold deposits in the world.
The project hosts a giant magmatic hydrothermal system which is characterised by extensive skarn-based gold-copper mineralisation with varying levels of associated silver, lead and zinc.
The overall geological system also supports attendant epithermal and porphyry-intrusive mineralisation styles.
The area has been explored since the extensive era of the Roman empire, including a number of significant episodes of drilling between 1957 and 2022 which comprise more than 100,000m of diamond drilling and assorted geochemistry and geophysics.
Previous work identified more than 20 exploration targets. Strickland’s current key projects include its flagship 5.3 million ounce gold equivalent Shanac inferred resource, its 1.28 million ounce gold equivalent Medenovac resource and the 0.81 million ounce gold equivalent Copper Canyon deposit.
It’s Gradina deposit makes up the current complement of still-evolving deposits with a resource estimate based on its multiple gold lodes pending finalisation in this year’s final quarter.
Strickland’s near-term exploration strategy includes ongoing resource growth through increasing and upgrading the existing inferred resources at Shanac and Copper Canyon, refining its mineral resources at the Medenovac and Gradina deposits and following up known mineralisation at Copper Canyon South and Cesme.
The company is also about to assault new drill-ready targets, including testing high-priority targets at its new Jezerska Reka discovery and at Kotlovi, Veleiki and Red Creek.
It also plans to follow-up new but earlier-stage targets at Obradov Potok, Leca, Wolf Pond and Kaluder.
The company plans to undertake about 35,000m of resource definition and 15,000m of discovery drilling at the Rogozna project this year and remains well-funded to deliver the largest-ever exploration program at Rogozna in 2025.
Six diamond drilling rigs are currently operating at Rogozna, with four rigs focused on Gradina, one at Shanac and one following up the late-2024 Kotlovi discovery.
Notably, the company was sitting on about $34.8 million in cash and liquid assets as of the end of March, topped up by a handy additional $5 million strategic private placement by big Chinese player Zijin Mining in mid-April.
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By Doug Bright
