- 01Gold eased, holding above US$4,000/oz.
- 02AGC26 mood stayed steady; sessions were packed.
- 03Directors remain active across precious-metals projects.
There's a moment at every gold conference where you realise there are more geologists per square metre than anywhere else in the country. At the Australian Gold Conference at Crown Towers in Barangaroo last week, that moment arrived about ten seconds after the doors opened. I know, because that's exactly when I grabbed my first interview.
AGC26 landed at an interesting point in the cycle. Gold ran to all-time highs early in the year, everyone got a bit giddy, and it has since pulled back to sit just above US$4,000 an ounce. Plenty of people read that as the party being over. The people in this room clearly didn't get the memo, and after two days of walk-and-talks with directors, neither did I.
I recorded short interviews with company directors from across the gold, silver and PGM space, plus two of the best-connected people in Australian bullion. Here's the wrap, grouped loosely by where each company sits on the road from drill hole to gold bar, with a link to every video so you can hear it straight from them.
The Mood in the Room
First up, our host. Kerry Stevenson, Founder and CEO of Gold Events, turned up in what she described as her copper porphyry jacket. I asked about the grades. Very high, apparently.
We did this one as a walk-and-talk through a crowd so thick we could barely get through it. Rick Rule spoke to a standing-room-only session that morning, Kerry was calling for more chairs, and the conference dinner had sold out. Our host described the sentiment as steady, which is exactly how she likes it. When precious metals run too hard, things get hysterical and the move doesn't stick.
Kerry passed on a cracking line from Jordan Eliseo at ABC Bullion. If a car, a pair of shoes, or a diamond ring was 25% off, we'd be stampeding the store. When gold does the same thing, people declare it all over. Kerry is quietly adding at these levels, while making very clear she's not a financial adviser and nobody should be selling the kids to buy bullion. Her bigger thesis: governments keep printing (sorry, quantitative easing), central banks keep buying gold, and the miners still have plenty of catching up to do.
▶ Watch: Kerry Stevenson walks and talks AGC26
Every time I catch up with Mike Ward from ABC Bullion, something is about to happen in gold. This time his read was that the price looks comfortable at these lower levels and is basing out. If it can find a floor and pick up speed again, we're back on track for higher levels.
What Mike loves most about AGC is the newcomers, people just starting to get their heads around gold and silver. His starter kit for them is refreshingly simple: get yourself a safe, fill it with some silver, and maybe a little bit of gold.
▶ Watch: Mike Ward of ABC Bullion
Developers on the Clock
Sunshine Metals (ASX: SHN)
Dr Damien Keys had just stepped off stage after publicly committing Sunshine Metals to first gold in 2027 at its Ravenswood consolidated project near Charters Towers. (We agreed not to do any doctors on camera. He's earned it, but the jokes write themselves.)
The last twelve months have been busy. Sunshine picked up the Sybil project and, within four months, turned a paper data set into shallow drill hits including 4.4 metres at 57.5g/t gold. Grade control at Liontown returned 30 metres at 6.7g/t gold and 530g/t silver, and the gold panel delivered 22 metres at 20g/t.
After shopping around for a toll treating partner and finding nothing commercial, Sunshine simply bought its own processing plant at Mount Moss, about 25 kilometres from Sybil. Damien admits that's a bit of cart before horse, but it means anything they find has an immediate home.
Milestones are coming thick and fast. First concrete goes down imminently, the ball mills have been lifted off their plinths for relining, and long-lead items including the modular gold room and Falcon concentrator are on order.
The environmental authority to process gold at Mount Moss is about to be submitted and the Liontown mining lease paperwork is in. Set an ambitious timeline, then stick to it.
▶ Watch: Damien Keys of Sunshine Metals
Horizon Gold (ASX: HRN)
My very first interview of the conference was with Sam, General Manager of Projects at Horizon Gold, who was there to tell the Gum Creek story. Gum Creek is a three million tonne per annum gold project that completed its definitive feasibility study in July, and Sam's job is to get it to a final investment decision.
Over the next three months, tenders go out for the process plant, camp, civil works and power, the estimate and schedule get finalised, and the plan is to raise capital in the first quarter of next year once approvals come through. Sam reckons the stock is undervalued against those fundamentals, and judging by the queue forming behind me, he wasn't the only one keen to talk about it.
Astral Resources (ASX: AAR)
Marc Ducler is one of my favourite people to interview, mainly because he finds it such a pain. Astral's flagship Mandilla project sits about 70 kilometres south of Kalgoorlie, with around $65 million in the bank and a DFS targeted for the March quarter of 2027.
The update since we last caught up at the Gold Coast is a big one. Astral re-ran the Spargoville resources it picked up with Maximus Resources, reinterpreting the geology and lifting the gold price assumption to A$4,500 an ounce. The result was a 102% increase, ahead of an RC rig heading to Wattle Dam in November.
Meanwhile, deep drilling at Theia is returning thick high-grade hits beneath the pit, including 53 metres at 5g/t and a follow-up of 33 metres at 5g/t about 60 metres away. Marc's maths: at a A$6,000 gold price, five grams a tonne is roughly a thousand dollars of revenue per tonne. There's a lot of money sitting under that pit. Next up is a diamond rig back at Kamperman before Christmas, then the DFS.
▶ Watch: Marc Ducler of Astral Resources
Lunnon Metals (ASX: LM8)
Edmund Ainscough corrected my pronunciation before we started, which turned out to be the perfect segue, because attention to detail is the whole Lunnon story. Its Lady Herial open pit at Kambalda went from discovery in 2024 to profit remarkably fast.
Lunnon drilled it out tightly and handed every bit of data to major shareholder Gold Fields, whose mill next door had spare capacity. Gold Fields signed off on the model and effectively treated the ore body as its own. Lunnon paid for mining, Gold Fields paid for processing, and they split the profit 70/30. A genuine win-win.
That leaves Lunnon with $43 million in the bank and a $13 million exploration budget funding 43 kilometres of drilling this year, the most ever on that ground. Add BHP's sale of the Kambalda nickel concentrator to Gold Fields, a potential pathway for Lunnon's high-grade nickel sulphides, and Edmund describes the company as a free option on discovery, a free option on nickel, and an option on cash flow. No dilution required.
▶ Watch: Edmund Ainscough of Lunnon Metals
Explorers with a Plan
Torque Metals (ASX: TOR)
Torque Metals owns the Paris gold project south of Kalgoorlie and is now run by a team out of Spartan Resources. Monty Graham told me Torque has grown the Paris resource 40% to 351,000 ounces at 3.1g/t, and its Project RPM strategy is aimed squarely at a million ounces through resource growth and new discoveries.
I asked when people would stop talking about Spartan. "I hope never," was the answer. The lessons he's carrying across: don't give up on a good idea, chase the historic anomalies nobody has followed up in thirty years, drill aggressively but logically, and if a target is dead, walk away and use your capital well. No flogging dead horses with other people's money.
▶ Watch: Monty Graham of Torque Metals
Flynn Gold (ASX: FG1)
Neil Marston walked me through Flynn Gold's path to production in Tasmania. At the Brilliant prospect within Golden Ridge, Flynn has lodged a mining lease application, recorded 94% gold extraction in metallurgical tests, and signed a non-binding ore purchase agreement with the nearby Henty gold mine run by Kaiser Reef.
Henty is the only producing gold mine in Tasmania and has spare capacity, so supplying ore there is a potential kickstart while Flynn works on a larger, longer-term plan.
Neil says Tasmania is having a resources renaissance, with the Mount Lyell restart a big vote of confidence. Flynn's other string is Firetower, a gold-tungsten project picked up from Greatland Gold in 2023, with hits like 17 metres at 0.51% tungsten oxide and 2.31g/t gold and a maiden resource for both metals in the works.
▶ Watch: Neil Marston of Flynn Gold
Resources and Energy Group (ASX: REZ)
Dan Moore handed me one of their excellent hats and then patiently fixed my pronunciation of Maranoa. REZ is advancing the East Menzies gold project, 130 kilometres north of Kalgoorlie, using a production-funds-exploration model.
It's done this before: in 2021 and 2022 a JV partner mined around 130,000 tonnes of ore for roughly 9,000 ounces of gold. The plan is to replicate that at Maranoa through a fully funded joint venture, with the longer-term goal of putting a mill in Menzies itself.
Profits go into drilling, and the big target is Gigante Grande. It has about 40,000 ounces today and Dan wants two more zeros on that number. The system could run for kilometres. I suggested there might be an elephant under there. Dan reckons the locals call it Gorilla Gold.
Gold's Cousins
Southern Palladium (ASX: SPD)
Roger Baxter, Executive Chair and former CEO of the Minerals Council of South Africa, made the case for why gold investors should care about PGMs. Southern Palladium's 70%-owned Bengwenyama project on the Bushveld complex was granted a 30-year mining right in August, has a DFS due around year end, and Roger points to a post-tax NPV of almost US$2 billion. Revenue is spread across rhodium, platinum, chrome and palladium, with a little gold on top.
On South Africa itself, Roger says business and government have fixed the electricity and logistics problems, the country is off the FATF grey list, and the ratings agencies are moving the right way.
His favourite fact of the conference: ruthenium, used in hard disk storage, was the best-performing precious metal last year thanks to AI demand. Not gold, not silver. Ruthenium.
▶ Watch: Roger Baxter of Southern Palladium
Maronan Metals (ASX: MMA)
This was one of Richard Carlton's final interviews as Managing Director of Maronan Metals. At the end of November he moves to a non-executive role, with Andrew Graham from Aurelia taking the reins. Maronan's project near Cloncurry holds more than 122 million ounces of silver and 760,000 ounces of gold, with $33 million in cash and investments.
North American money is paying attention. Kinterra put in $22 million for a 19.99% stake in May, and Maronan has just announced a further $20 million from a US fund. A 40,000-metre drill program is halfway done, feeding a PFS in FY2027.
Richard's report card over nearly five years: around $100 million raised and market cap from $30 million to $130 million. Not a bad note to hand over on.
▶ Watch: Richard Carlton of Maronan Metals
Australian Gold and Copper (ASX: AGC)
Yes, the ticker is AGC at AGC. Very smart marketing. Glen Diemar's Achilles discovery in the South Cobar region of NSW, one of my favourite parts of the world, has gone from discovery in 2024 to 38.5 million ounces of silver equivalent, with high grades traced more than 540 metres down dip. As a silver guy, I'm here for it. Glen puts the success down to systematic exploration and making every dollar work hard.
Recent drilling on newly acquired ground has delivered results including 17 metres at 5g/t from just 60 metres downhole. AGC has also added the Juni gold project in the Lake Cowal belt, home to Evolution's 14-million-ounce Lake Cowal mine, with seven walk-up drill targets.
▶ Watch: Glen Diemar of Australian Gold and Copper
The Takeaway
The gold price may be catching its breath, but nobody at AGC26 was sitting still. Producers are being built, mills are being bought, resources are doubling, and North American institutions are writing cheques. As Kerry put it, conferences like this are one of the few places you can get face to face with directors and ask the questions that need asking. My advice: do the work, then do a bit more.
If you're a sophisticated or professional investor and want to talk about what's coming through the pipeline in this space, reach out to me at SmallCaps. Thanks to Kerry and the Gold Events team for a cracking couple of days, and to every director who gave me five minutes.
For more information on Kerry’s next unmissable event, check out the Gold Events website for more information.
This article is general information only and does not take into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. It is not financial advice. Do your own research or speak to a licensed adviser before making any investment decision.
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