Great Southern managing director Matt Keane admits the company had been a bit capital-starved over the past few years, but in late March, it raised A$4.6 million and by next month, drilling should be underway on two projects.

The low-profile company has a very strategic landholding, sharing the Duketon Greenstone Belt with mid-tier gold producer Regis Resources.

Regis’ Duketon operations comprise 10 million tonnes per annum of milling capacity across three main mines, with resources of 4 million ounces of gold and reserves of 1.4Moz.

Great Southern holds 10-20% of the belt, including major portions of the shear zones that host Regis’ resource base.

The company sold Regis the Southern Star deposit last year for A$4 million cash and another A$3 million when Regis starts mining. Regis recently announced a maiden resource of 69,000oz.

Great Southern’s two most advanced prospects, Golden Boulder and Amy Clarke, are within 10-12km of Regis’ Garden Well mill.

The most recent assays from Golden Boulder included 6m at 6.7 grams per tonne from 48m, including 1m at 34.5g/t gold; 5m at 5.1g/t gold from 25m, including 1m at 23.9g/t gold; 5m at 3.5g/t gold from 39m; 9m at 1.8g/t gold from 19m, including 2m at 5g/t gold; and 9m at 1.8g/t gold from 45m, including 2m at 5.9g/t gold.

Gold has been intersected over a strike length of around 3.5km.

The company is also awaiting the results from two deep holes completed at Golden Boulder, which are due in coming weeks.

“That’s the first ever deep drilling and the first ever diamond drilling … so that obviously helps us unlock what’s happening at depth,” Keane said. 

“Golden Boulder is really interesting. It’s got at least three lines of mineralisation, and it’s probably a bleed to surface of some gold, which is coming from something a bit more significant at depth.”

It sits on the Rosemont fault, the same fault that hosts Regis’ Rosemont mine. 

“I think Rosemont’s down to somewhere between 600 and 800m. We’re definitely on the same structure, so we expect we’re going to have a pretty deep system here,” Keane said.

“That’s why we drilled that diamond hole, to try and get understanding where these structures are going, so we can hunt it down.”

Drilling to begin

Great Southern now has $6 million in cash and is fully funded to drill Duketon.

Keane expects the program will kick off in coming weeks with 17,000-20,000m of reverse circulation drilling.

“The idea there is at Golden Boulder, we’re looking to define a maiden resource, but we’ve got 3.5km, which has got consistent gold hits,” Keane said.

“We’ve only drilled that to about 100m vertical depth, so we want to drill deeper, but also infill, where we’ve extended to the south, so it’s a mixture of infill at depth, but also maybe a bit of resource definition.”

Amy Clarke is earlier stage, with previous drilling only to 50m depth.

“There we’ve got a 4.7km of almost gun-barrel straight gold mineralisation along a shear zone, so we want to flesh out the sweetest spots in that,” Keane said. 

“It’s probably a much bigger system than we than we originally thought it may be.”

They’re just two of 12 prospects Great Southern has identified.

“There’s a usual repeat of deposits on these major shears, and along the Laverton tectonics, about every 30-40km is a major gold camp,” Keane said. 

“So, we’re sitting in a really good block of ground which just hasn’t been exploited or hasn’t been drilled, so that’s what we’re planning to do over the next 12 months – hit it hard.”

Keane said the company would chase a multimillion-ounce discovery, but given its position, anything above 40,000oz could be valuable to Regis and other nearby mills owned by Gold Fields and Genesis Minerals.

“It’s unlikely we would ever actually get to build a mill unless we found 3Moz,” he said. “It’s just illogical given the number of mills that surround us.

“When we get any sort of scale – and scale for us is probably anything above 250,000oz – we’re going to be highly sought after by a number of those big guys around us.”

The Powerball

Gold Fields is spending up to $15 million on Great Southern’s Edinburgh Park project in Queensland to earn 75%.

The project is a province-scale opportunity prospective for copper-gold porphyry systems, high and low epithermal gold systems and intrusive-related gold systems.

Mt Dillon is considered the highest-ranked target, with a large chargeability anomaly sitting underneath a lithocap.

“It ticks all the boxes for a big system,” Keane said. 

Gold Fields is currently sourcing a low-angle rig ahead of drilling next month.

“For us, that’s kind of a Powerball,” Keane said. “If we end up with 25% of a monster deposit, which they’re obviously chasing – 5Moz is the sort of scale they want – we’ll be more than happy.”