The latest results from Wishbone Gold PLC (AIM:WSBN, AQSE:WSBN)'s Red Setter project in Western Australia give plenty of grounds for encouragement.
Is there mineralisation there? – you bet there is.
Among the best results from a set of assays released on 13 December were 14 metres at 1 gram per tonne gold and 0.2% copper, and 10 metres at 0.48 grams gold and 0.03% copper.
Those results form part of a broader confirmation of the presence at Red Setter of a hydrothermal gold and copper system.
And in a way, it’s not surprising.
The project sits in a prime location for it,
in a district that’s already produced more than one world-class gold project.
To the north-east lies Newcrest’s famous - although now largely mined-out - Telfer project.
And directly east lies the Greatland Gold’s Havieron project, the discovery that relit the fire under gold exploration in this part of the Pilbara.
Bearing in mind that Newcrest is known to be on the look-out for feed for its increasingly underused facility at Telfer, and that Red Setter is even nearer Telfer than Havieron, it looks like Wishbone would struggle to find a better geographical address.
It’s not so easy to get such prime ground in the Paterson Range these days, but Wishbone’s chairman Richard Poulden managed it.
The project was originally acquired in a ballot by a local, who then passed it on to Poulden. Originally, not much was known about Red Setter.
But it quickly became apparent that the project had real, and significant potential.
As it stands, the central focus for the geologists is a huge underground magnetic anomaly. At three kilometres long by multiple kilometres deep, this anomaly is far bigger than the 500 metre by 500 metre anomaly that lies at the heart of Havieron.
Bear in mind, too, that the Havieron anomaly has underpinned valuations for Greatland Gold that have run into several hundreds of millions of pounds.
But there’s only one way to find out if what’s in the ground really does match the Wishbone aspiration – and that’s to get on and drill.
To that end, Poulden raised £2.4mln in September, and the results of that first campaign are what are now just now coming in.
So far, so good – plenty of mineralisation to get to grips with, and plenty of signs that there’s more to be had.
At this point Wishbone is already confident enough in what it’s found to draw a direct comparison to the mineralisation at Telfer.
And not surprisingly, plans are already afoot for next season’s drilling campaigns.
“We’ve stopped drilling at the moment,” says Poulden, “but we know where to go next year.”
First, though, there’s a bit more data that needs to be fed into the model for Red Setter.
Wishbone has undertaken a magnetotellurics survey which it will combine with the magnetic data and the new information gleaned from the drilling to update its understanding of how the geology’s working.
There’s plenty of money still in the kitty from September’s raise, so the geologists will be allowed a reasonable amount of flexibility in matching their ambition to reality, although there are other projects to be worked up too, including Cottesloe, which lies to the south of Red Setter.
Here, it’s thought that mineralisation may run over a strike as long as 12 kilometres, and drilling is also planned.
And over in Queensland, Wishbone still retains its old eponymous Wishbone properties, which continue to show promise.
But it’s on Red Setter that the spotlight will inevitably continue to fall. And not only because of the huge potential that’s on offer geologically, or because of its attractive location near to Telfer.
There’s also the possibility that rivalry between Andrew Forrest - the mining mogul behind Fortescue who’s now the major shareholder in Greatland – and Newcrest may result in a land-grab in the Pilbara.
Forrest has deep enough pockets to make Greatland independent of Newcrest, and if he did do that it would change the whole dynamic of land valuation in the area and – just possibly – put Wishbone in the centre of a bidding war.