Hope Grows for Near-Surface Gold as Far Northern Unveils Promising Drilling Results

Far Northern Resources has been quietly adding chips to the stack in the Top End. This week brings a fresh batch of ounces from the Ios Gold Project and, for good measure, a drilling highlight at Bridge Creek that would make any geologist spit out their instant coffee: 1 metre at 104 g/t within a 3-metre hit. It’s early-stage stuff, but the pieces are starting to line up.

What’s New

Ios Gold Project Inferred Mineral Resource

Far Northern (ASX: FNR) unveiled a JORC (2012) Inferred Mineral Resource for Ios: 0.50Mt at 1.49 g/t gold for 24.1koz (effective 30 July 2025). Fold that into Bridge Creek and FNR now tallies a materially larger consolidated resource inventory of roughly 117koz across the portfolio.

Why that’s interesting: the Ios mineralisation sits near surface, extending to about 150m vertical and tracking roughly 140m by 425m, remaining open along strike and down dip. The geometry looks tailor-made for open-pit scenarios, with multiple parallel sulphide–quartz shear zones hosted in the Zamu Dolerite.

The estimate, prepared by Angora Resources, relies on historical RC and diamond drilling (no new holes since 1995), ordinary kriging with 1m composites, a 0.2 g/t gold wireframe and a 0.5 g/t reporting cut-off. A first-pass pit shell (RPEEE) used indicative assumptions of ~A$5,100/oz gold, 90% recovery, ~A$5/t mining and ~A$50/t processing to help constrain potentially open-pittable material.

What’s next at Ios: infill RC/DD drilling, twinning of historical holes to validate legacy datasets, bulk density measurements, geometallurgy and metallurgical testwork to tighten up the metallurgical recovery assumptions-key steps to upgrading the resource classification.

Caveats to note: it’s all Inferred at this stage, built from older datasets with limited QA/QC and patchy downhole surveys. There are no measured bulk density data yet (defaults were applied), and detailed environmental/ESG work is still to come. Translation: good exploration foothold, but not yet mine-planning material.

Bridge Creek drilling and quarterly update

FNR wrapped up Phase 1 RC drilling at Bridge Creek with 20 holes – and 20 gold hits – generally consistent with the April 2024 model. The headliner: FNRBCRC022 returned 3m at 36.82 g/t from 12m, including 1m at a blockbuster 104 g/t. Several broader, lower-grade intercepts support continuity along the Cosmo Howley anticline. The deposit remains open at depth and along strike.

LIDAR surveying is complete, the resource model has been refined with Phase 1 data, and Phase 2 is locked in: >2,000m of follow-up RC drilling slated for next quarter. Management continues to talk up a strategic advantage from a mill within trucking distance – useful optionality for small, near-surface ounces.

On the balance sheet, FNR spent a modest ~A$178.6k on exploration for the quarter, finished with A$2.513m in cash and term deposits, and estimates roughly seven quarters of runway at current outflows. Governance-wise, Nicholas Revell joined the board as a non-executive director (8 May 2025), while Rod Corps resigned (1 July 2025). Native title negotiations for ML20380 are pending despite documentation being lodged.

Why It Matters for Investors

Near-surface ounces are the bread-and-butter of small-cap gold developers: cheaper to drill, simpler to model, and – if grade and continuity hold up – potentially open-pittable with low strip ratios. Ios adds a new sash of near-surface mineralisation, while Bridge Creek’s high-grade shoots and broader halo keep the growth story alive.

The playbook here looks classic Northern Territory: grow a cluster of mineable tonnes, then either toll treat or strike a trucking arrangement to an existing mill. With Aussie-dollar gold prices hovering near all-time highs in recent months, even modest grades can stack up if the pits are shallow and the trucks don’t have to go far. The cash runway buys FNR time to do the necessary work – density, QA/QC twinning, metallurgical testing – without rushing to market, though a larger program would likely require fresh capital down the track.

Just remember: Ios is entirely Inferred and Bridge Creek still needs systematic infill and deeper tests. Early economic shells use preliminary assumptions (like ~A$5,100/oz and 90% recovery) that can change as the data harden.

Bigger Picture

The Pine Creek goldfield has a long history of turning shallow, structurally hosted deposits into a network of satellite pits feeding central plants. With many NT mills hungry for feed, explorers who can define near-surface ounces with decent continuity often find pragmatic pathways to production without megabuck capex. Couple that with resilient Aussie-dollar gold prices and the industry’s renewed focus on re-logging, re-assaying and modernising historical datasets, and FNR’s “old data, new life” approach at Ios looks very much of the moment.

Looking Ahead

• Phase 2 RC at Bridge Creek (>2,000m) and subsequent assays
• Infill, twinning and downhole surveys at Ios to lift confidence from Inferred
• Bulk density measurements and metallurgical/geomet testwork
• Potential resource updates as datasets mature
• Any binding toll-milling/trucking agreement
• Progress on tenement and native title steps, including ML20380

If the drill rigs keep delivering and the QA/QC boxes tick off, FNR could stitch together a tidy, open-pit-friendly inventory with multiple development options.