There are few explorers on the ASX which can boast of two potential company-making copper targets, but that’s exactly the case with Great Western Exploration.

The company, which has a market capitalisation of around A$20 million, is at one of the most pivotal times in its history as it prepares to drill multiple targets across two separate projects.

“To put it bluntly – or boldly – we’re looking to make a once-in-a-decade discovery,” Great Western managing director Shane Pike said this week.

“We’ve got a deep well of targets.”

Both the Fairbairn and Yerrida North projects are near Meekatharra in Western Australia and sit in proven yet under-explored geological belts.

“Either one of them could be company-makers in their own right,” Pike said.

Should one of the targets result in a discovery, the upside for Great Western is enormous.

Pike pointed to Sandfire Resources, which went from A8.9c to as high as A$8.30 after making the DeGrussa copper discovery in 2009.

“That’s what we’re trying to do here,” he said.

Fairbairn

Great Western is looking for another DeGrussa at Fairbairn.

DeGrussa produced over 670,000 tonnes of copper and 400,000 ounces of gold over its life until its closure in 2022.

Drilling at Fairbairn is due to kick off any day now, once approvals have been received.

Great Western has identified three large DeGrussa-style volcanogenic massive sulphide targets via a fixed-loop electromagnetic survey.

“We’ve mapped a volcanic unit that hasn’t previously been mapped,” Pike said.

The conductors have been modelled 80-190m below surface.

Rock chip sampling of the up-dip projection of the conductors returned peak grades of 0.19% copper and 0.15 grams per tonne gold.

The plan is to drill one hole into each of the three targets to about 250-350m depth but Pike said there was flexibility to continue drilling if it was successful.

“We’d take one DeGrussa but three is better, right?”

Yerrida North:

Great Western’s Yerrida North project contains the exciting Oval and Oval South targets.

“We’re looking for true monsters here,” Pike said.

Great Western believes the targets are prospective for Winu-style intrusive-related copper-gold mineralisation.

Rio Tinto discovered the Winu deposit in WA’s Pilbara region in late 2017 and now sits in the company’s development pipeline.

Winu has an indicated resource of 222 million tonnes at 0.45% copper, 0.35g/t gold and 2.73g/t silver.

“Funnily enough, Rio actually defined Oval back in the late ‘90s,” Pike said.

“They were looking for Winu before they actually found it.”

The target was defined via a TEMPEST EM survey, technology which is now outdated.

Rio drilled at the time but missed the anomaly.

“Geologists, quite rightly at the time, thought the shales were a false anomaly and walked away,” Pike said.

Sandfire, which was looking for the next DeGrussa or satellite deposits to feed its mill, farmed into Yerrida North.

It continued Rio’s work using the latest technology and defined the top of the target at 300m below surface – about 70m below Rio’s earlier hole.

Pike said Sandfire was excited to drill the target and was progressing permitting when the decision was made to withdraw from exploration in Australia to focus on its operating mines in Botswana and Spain.

Sandfire handed the project back to Great Western after spending A$4.5 million.

“We’re riding on the back of really good work completed by Rio and Sandfire,” Pike said.

Drilling at Yerrida North is set to begin in May with one drillhole each at Oval and Oval South to about 600m depth.

The targets share key geological attributes with Winu, including coincident gravity and EM anomalies, coincident magnetic anomalism, favourable stratigraphy and proximity to the proven fertile crustal-scale Ida Fault and Yerrida Basin Fault.

“There isn’t a larger target anyone will be drilling this year,” said Pike.

Fully-funded:

Despite having two major drilling campaigns on the horizon, Great Western doesn’t need to raise cash.

At December 31, it had a healthy bank balance of A$3.86 million.

Pike said more than 70% of Great Western’s cash went into the ground.

More than half of the company is held by directors, management and cornerstone shareholders.

Non-executive directors are all significant shareholders and don’t take directors’ fees, which Pike said was rare for an ASX-listed company.

While Great Western is juggling two potentially “colossal” projects, Pike said the company wouldn’t consider farming out or joint venturing its ground at this stage.

“I’m a bit greedy in that way and our shareholders should be too,” he said.