Greatland Gold PLC (LON:GGP) is to step up exploration at its Paterson licences in Western Australia after establishing Havieron as a significant gold-copper discovery.
Partner Newcrest now has eight drill rigs operating at Havieron and intends to undertake a further 20,000-30,000 metres of drilling over the next two quarters to support a potential maiden resource by the end of the calendar year.
Gervaise Heddle, chief executive, added that the Greatland has also identified more than a dozen additional targets in the region, many of which display similar geophysical signatures to Havieron and where drilling will be a strategic priority in 2020.
“Our team has spent the last few months planning a comprehensive campaign across these targets."
At Havieron, Newcrest has demonstrated mineralisation over 450m of strike, up to 150m wide and more than 600m deep.
As well as a maiden resource by the end of calendar year 2020, Newcrest is targeting commercial production within subsequent 2-3 years of that.
Greatland’s own drilling will focus on Scallywag in the Paterson region, where four new high-priority targets have been identified following geophysics programme, including Kraken, London and Blackbeard
A further eight targets have been identified at Paterson Range East including Goliath and Los Diablos, while Black Hills has indicated a near-surface gold system at Saddle Reefs.
An airborne magnetic survey will start early in April with drilling to start at Scallywag at the end of the month.
Heddle added: "The first half of the financial year was an exciting period for Greatland, which saw our Havieron project establish itself as a significant gold-copper discovery.
"Looking ahead, we will continue to focus on moving our portfolio of assets up the value curve, especially in the Paterson, which we regard as the leading frontier in Australia for the discovery of tier-one, gold-copper deposits.”
Greatland had cash of £4mln at the end of 2019 and has since raised a further £2mln through warrant conversions.
Losses in the half-year to December were £2.63mln.