Miramar Resources taps into WA’s Eastern Goldfields with strategic expansion and drilling plans

Miramar Resources (ASX: M2R) is planning to revisit a promising gold target its executive chairman identified back in 2019.

The company has lodged an application for a new tenement that has strategically expanded its 480 square kilometre Eastern Goldfields tenement portfolio in Western Australia.

The application area is located over an 11km long aircore gold anomaly at Lake Yindarlgooda that the company believes has similarities to the 2 million-plus-ounce Invincible gold deposit near Kambalda.

Miramar executive chair Allan Kelly implemented a first-pass lake aircore drilling program at Lake Yindarlgooda while employed by Riversgold (ASX: RGL) in 2019.

This program outlined significant gold results over the entire strike length including several holes ending in gold mineralisation.

Despite the results being considered significant and the area being located approximately 50 km east of Kalgoorlie, no further exploration was carried out and the tenements were ultimately surrendered by Riversgold in March 2024.

Miramar will now work towards grant of the tenement and follow-up aircore drilling once all relevant approvals are obtained.

In the meantime, Miramar is preparing for a maiden drilling campaign within the Bangemall multi-element projects where it will be following up nickel, copper, cobalt and platinum group element (Ni-Cu-Co-PGE) potential.

Undervalued portfolio

Mr Kelly said the company’s current share price does not recognise the value of its Eastern Goldfields exploration project portfolio.

“Since listing in 2020 with a portfolio of highly prospective early-stage gold, nickel and copper projects in WA, we have systematically advanced our key projects up the exploration value chain, added to our land position through strategic tenement applications and relinquished those tenements which lacked significant discovery potential,” Mr Kelly said.

“In a record gold price environment, the inherent value of our gold projects, including our flagship Gidji JV project where we have made multiple new gold discoveries immediately along strike from one of the richest patches of earth on the planet, is significant.”

“We’ve also advanced our Bangemall projects from the initial concept to high priority drill targets which could define a new style of nickel mineralisation in a new mineral province,” he added.

Norilsk-style deposit

At Bangemall, Miramar is aiming to show “proof of concept” of its Norilsk-style deposit model by initially hunting for Ni-Cu-Co-PGE sulphide mineralisation.

Over the past 24 months, the company has undertaken programs that have helped delineate individual drill targets at the Mount Vernon and Trouble Bore projects.

The company has already received programme of work approval from the Department of Energy, Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety for proposed new exploration campaigns.

The company hopes to complete the maiden drill program during mid-2024.

Gidji gold promise

Since listing in October 2020, Miramar has made several new gold discoveries at its Gidji project through systematic aircore drilling of structural targets identified in regional and project-scale geophysical data.

With multiple new gold deposits located close to several existing gold mining and/or processing operations, the company believes Gidji offers the potential for the discovery of a new gold camp.

While Gidji is located just 15km north of Kalgoorlie, it is relatively underexplored due to the presence of transported material and the Gidji palaeochannel which covers the most prospective geology.

At least two of Miramar’s new Gidji discoveries have not been closed off along strike and significant bedrock aircore gold intersections are yet to be followed up with deeper reverse circulation (RC) and/or diamond drilling.

Miramar is planning to reprocess regional and project-scale geophysical data to help refine the structural interpretation of the project, followed by RC drilling of selected targets.