Vita Resources NL (ASX:VTA) has begun mobilising drilling equipment for its maiden exploration program at the Ninnis Gold Project in Western Australia’s Eastern Goldfields, with drilling expected to start shortly.
The company has engaged GYRO Drilling to complete an auger drilling campaign comprising about 1,200 holes designed to infill previously identified gold-in-soil anomalies. The program will follow up earlier sub-surface soil sampling conducted by previous operators, which returned anomalous gold results beneath transported cover across the project area.
Ninnis is located around 30–35 km west of Laverton and covers 25 km² of prospective ground in a region that hosts several multi-million-ounce gold deposits.
“Work undertaken by previous owners at the Ninnis Project included widely spaced, systematic soil sampling beneath transported alluvial cover. This approach differed from earlier shallow surface sampling programs, which appear to have masked underlying gold anomalism in the area. Deeper sampling targeting the soil and Wiluna hardpan interface zone materially improved the geological understanding of the Ninnis Project and defined coherent gold anomalism extending for at least 4 kilometres of strike and exceeding 400 metres in width along the Celia and Ninnis fault corridors. Importantly, this anomalous trend does not appear to have been historically recognised prior to that work," non-executive chairman Gavin Rutherford said.
The Ninnis Project is located along two sub-parallel fault systems, including the regionally significant Celia Fault — a major structure extending approximately 700 kilometres and spatially associated with multiple gold mining centres, including the Mt Morgans Mining Centre. Regionally, the Celia Fault is interpreted as a deep crustal structure that focused gold-bearing hydrothermal fluids and is widely accepted as having been involved in the formation of significant gold deposits along its extensive corridor.
The scale and demonstrated fertility of this structural system materially enhance the prospectivity of the Ninnis Project’s structural corridor. The Company’s forthcoming maiden auger campaign represents the first coordinated and systematic follow-up of this structurally controlled target under current ownership. Given the scale of the anomalism and its favourable structural setting, the Board considers this programme an important step in assessing the potential for a gold system within a proven mineralised belt.”
Ninnis Gold Project satellite view.
Program to test structural targets and soil anomalies
The auger campaign will focus on two sub-parallel fault zones interpreted as key structural controls on earlier anomalous soil results. These structures will be tested using closer-spaced sampling to better define potential gold mineralisation along the fault corridors.
Additional targets include the northern extension of a soil-covered banded iron formation that hosts the nearby Mt Morgans gold deposits and structural trends associated with the McKenzie Well gold project.
Previous subsurface soil sampling undertaken beneath shallow transported cover and the Wiluna Hardpan returned encouraging results, defining coherent gold anomalism extending for at least 4 km of strike and up to 400 metres in width along the Celia and Ninnis fault systems.
The Ninnis Project sits within a highly endowed gold district that includes Genesis Minerals’ Mount Morgans Gold Mining Centre around 6 km to the south. Other nearby operations include Gold Fields’ Wallaby deposit at Granny Smith and AngloGold Ashanti’s Sunrise Dam mine.
Ninnis Gold Project location.
Vita said the upcoming drilling program represents the first systematic follow-up of the structurally controlled anomalies identified in earlier work and will be conducted during March 2026, after which samples will be submitted for assay and geochemical analysis.