“We’re demonstrably one of the cheapest gold stocks on the ASX,” Great Boulder managing director Andrew Paterson said from Brisbane, where he was preparing to present at the Resources Rising Stars Summer Series.

Great Boulder’s flagship asset is the Side Well gold project near Meekatharra, which has a recently updated resource of 16 million tonnes at 2 grams per tonne for 1.02Moz of gold.

“The regional context is that you’ve got two companies in the A$700-800 million bracket, which is New Murchison Gold to the north-west, and Meeka Metals to the north,” Paterson said.

“Westgold Resources is obviously the big neighbour next door.”

Westgold has more recently been a seller than a buyer, spinning out assets into a new float Valiant Gold and selling its Mt Henry project to Alicanto Minerals, adding new players to the district.

“All of those companies are, no doubt, keeping an eye on the region, so as a company, we’re very focused on pushing the growth story as fast as we can to try and defend against our perceived vulnerability to takeover,” Paterson said.

There’s 10 million tonnes per annum of milling capacity within a 200km radius of Side Well, owned by Westgold, as well as other mid-tier producers Ramelius Resources to the south and Catalyst Metals to the north.

Great Boulder also has a non-binding memorandum of understanding with Toronto-listed Monument Mining to investigate processing Side Well ore through Monument’s nearby Burnakura mill, which is on care and maintenance.

Great Boulder spent much of last year in the A$50-60 million market cap range and though it’s up more than 60% over the past six months, Paterson still gets asked why the stock is so cheap.

He suggested one reason may be that the project is owned 75-80% by Great Boulder in joint venture with prospector Scott Wilson’s Zebina Minerals.

“The perception around the joint venture is that it makes things a little more complicated, and that’s undoubtedly true, but it’s certainly workable,” he said.

“Scott Wilson is the JV partner. He’s a smart guy with a great track record.”

Some investors may also be waiting for Great Boulder to finalise a mining agreement, which is currently in the advanced stages of negotiation.

Paterson said the company was working on both issues.

“There’s a couple of things there that are short to medium term potential catalysts that we’re working on,” he said.

Side Well growing

The December resource update included 61% of the ounces in the indicated category, with 90% considered to have potential for open pit mining.

The flagship Mulga Bill deposit has a resource of 642,000oz at 2.4g/t gold, including a high-grade component of 441,000oz at 5.3g/t gold.

The resource update also included maiden resources for four deposits.

Great Boulder has hit 105m at 2.41g/t gold outside the Eaglehawk resource and just before Christmas, intersected coarse visible gold in a brecciated quartz vein from 503.5m, 200m below previous drilling at Mulga Bill.

Paterson said assays for the hit were about a month away.

“There’ll be a big number associated with that. We’re pretty excited about that,” he said.

“That’s just starting to really flesh out that big picture potential. Obviously, stuff like that is down the track in terms of getting into resource, but it really demonstrates our confidence on this system is certainly being confirmed.”

Drilling accelerating

Earlier this week, the company reported more results from late 2025 drilling, highlighting the project’s depth potential.

Diamond drilling at Ironbark intersected 15.32m at 8.85g/t gold from 125.38m and 1.08m at 9.16g/t gold from 179.24m, below the known mineralisation.

Aircore drilling in proximity to the Flagpole deposit, 3km south of Mulga Bill at the southern end of the 6km Central Corridor, intersected 4m at 16.55g/t gold from 64m; 15m at 2.2g/t gold from 94m, including 5m at 4.19g/t gold; and 16m at 1.51g/t gold from 88m.

Great Boulder has an aircore rig, reverse circulation rig and a diamond rig drilling at Side Well.

“We’re looking for opportunities to speed things up further by bringing in more rigs,” Paterson said.

“We’re really fleshing out, I suppose, our targets for the next half million ounces, so our next milestone will be the 1.5Moz mark.”

That’s the point at which Great Boulder will start economic studies and work towards declaring an initial reserve.

“That’s broadly what we’re looking at,” Paterson said. “Then at the same time, we’re really looking hard at any other opportunities in the region, particularly that might be captured by, for example, Westgold’s mill, which might allow us to kind of leapfrog the development process.

“Specifically, in a perfect world scenario, if we could buy ounces on a mining lease and bring them to account sooner rather than later, that would be pretty useful as well.”