Riversgold Ltd has completed a strategic site visit to its Wodgina East tenement in Western Australia’s Pilbara region, highlighting the landholding’s growing value as operations at the world-class Wodgina Lithium Mine expand toward its boundary.
The granted tenement (E45/6363) abuts the eastern edge of Mineral Resources Ltd’s Wodgina Lithium Mine – one of the world’s largest hard-rock lithium operations. RGL’s strategic focus on the tenement comes as operations at the mine further expand.
Mapped Geology of Wodgina East Project (E45/6363), as released to the ASX on May 30, 2025.
“RGL is ensuring it is keeping up to date with its expenditure commitments for this tenement as we consider that it will become more valuable as the Wodgina Mine comes closer to the tenement boundary,” RGL chairman David Lenigas said, urging shareholders to “ascertain for themselves the potential longer-term value towards our tenement portfolio” based on recent imagery of the mine’s progression.
“We are now receiving next steps to advance a more detailed exploration program on the granted tenement going forward,” he added.
Proximity to channel iron deposits, infrastructure
Beyond its immediate connection to the Wodgina Lithium Mine and vicinity to numerous known iron ore deposits and mines, Wodgina East benefits from being just 120 kilometres south of Port Hedland along the Great Northern Highway, which runs north-south through the southeast corner of the tenement. It is also 114 kilometres from the Utah Point shipping terminal, making trucking from project to port attractive.
In May 2024, Riversgold completed its Phase 1 reconnaissance exploration program at Wodgina East, identifying several potential channel iron deposits (CID) across the tenement. Fieldwork included detailed geological and satellite imagery mapping, which outlined two erosion-resistant mesas over 1.5 kilometres in length.
One mesa was found to be capped by a hard, goethite-hematite, pisloitic to oolitic sedimentary unit, believed to represent transported iron derived from the erosion of lateritic hardcap. It had iron clasts cemented by iron oxides – a key characteristic of CID-style mineralisation.
Further supporting the project’s potential, a review of historical data revealed that rock chip samples taken from Mesa 2 by Hemisphere Resources in 2011 and 2012 returned iron grades between 51.94% and 56.57% iron content.
Renewed focus on iron ore potential
During the recent site visit, technical director Ed Mead and Riversgold’s geological team reviewed previous work programs to determine the next steps in exploration. The visit let them observe firsthand how close Mineral Resources’ operations have progressed towards the northwest boundary of Riversgold’s tenement.
This proximity, coupled with geological promise, underpins the company’s view that Wodgina East could become an increasingly valuable part of its Pilbara project portfolio.
The update signals a renewed focus on the iron ore potential at Wodgina East, particularly its channel iron formations, which could hold commercial interest given their scale, grade and access to infrastructure.
Riversgold, with a copper and gold portfolio that also includes lithium, uranium and iron ore, has key projects in Australia’s Yilgarn region and in New Brunswick, Canada, in addition to its Pilbara presence.
The company said it is now reviewing options to advance a more detailed exploration program on the Wodgina East tenement, with further updates expected in due course.