Strickland Metals has kicked off its 2025 Serbian exploration campaign in style, striking a pair of thick, high-grade hits including a standout 66.8-metre section grading 2.7 grams per tonne (g/t) gold equivalent at its Shanac deposit, which is part of the company’s monster 7.4-million-ounce gold equivalent Rogozna project.
The company’s first two drill holes both punched into huge, mineralised zones up to 265m wide, which were each laced with large high-grade sweetener sections.
The first hole went straight through the guts of Shanac’s main mineralised zone - dubbed the Central Domain - and didn’t disappoint. It returned a monster gold equivalent intercept of 251.6m at 1.3g/t from 341.9m, including a sizzling 58.1m at 2.3g/t gold equivalent and some mouth-watering subzones peaking at 6.7g/t gold equivalent.
A second hole was drilled about 100m to the northeast of the first. It hit an equally impressive gold equivalent section of 265.0m grading 1.2g/t from 366.1m, with a juicy 66.8m hit going 2.7g/t gold equivalent from 423.8m and topping out at 7.5g/t gold equivalent over 1.3m.
The surprise strike from hole two lit up the western flank of the Central Domain – an area previously thought to be lower grade or even barren – and has offered the company the tantalising prospect of further high-grade extensions.
Notably, the richer zones in both holes graded more than 50 per cent higher than the rest of the deposit, which has blown Strickland’s geological model at Shanac wide open.
The company says the latest results served up plenty of food for thought and a serious resource upgrade at Shanac could now be firmly on the menu. Assays are still pending for two more holes from the deposit.
Strickland Metals managing director Paul L'Herpiniere said: “These results further reinforce the scale and endowment of the Shanac deposit, underlining its commercial development potential and optionality as evidenced both by bulk tonnage and higher-grade mineralisation styles.”
The Shanac deposit already hosts 150 million tonnes grading 1.1g/t in gold, copper, lead, zinc and silver credits for a 5.3-million-ounce gold equivalent resource. It is just one piece of Strickland’s larger Rogozna puzzle, which includes other advanced deposits such as Medenovac, which has a 1.28M-ounce gold equivalent resource, and the 810,000-ounce gold equivalent Copper Canyon deposit.
Strickland now has a total of six diamond rigs hammering out the metres at Rogozna, including one at Shanac and four at its exciting gold-only Gradina prospect, where it is hopes to deliver a maiden resource later this year.
A sixth truth teller is sticking holes into the company’s exciting Kotlovi prospect to follow up on a 2024 discovery hole, which struck a 12m intercept grading 5.7g/t gold, within a larger section of 40.3m running at 2.6g/t gold from 558m.
Strickland is sitting on a war chest of nearly $34.8 million as of March 31, which was topped up when the $US60 billion Chinese mining giant Zijin Mining threw an additional $5M into the pot.
With Zijin Mining on the register, Strickland has a serious heavyweight in its corner and it’s not hard to see why that’s big news. Zijin can deliver Strickland with its global firepower and some deep local clout, particularly in Serbia, where it's already a dominant player.
Zijin runs the massive Čukaru Peki and Bor copper-gold operations in Serbia, which host a jaw-dropping 34Mt copper and 29M ounces gold in the ground. The two mines pumped out 300,000t of copper and 250,000 ounces of gold in 2024 to cement Zijin’s status as a powerhouse in the region.
With momentum building, rigs humming and some high grades rolling in, Strickland appears on track for a transformational year in Serbia.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By James Pearson
