Strickland’s flagship Rogozna project in Serbia has an inferred resource of 199 million tonnes at 1.2 grams per tonne gold equivalent for 7.4 million ounces of AuEq, making it one of the largest undeveloped gold projects on the ASX.

Earlier this week, Strickland reported the discovery of a new zone of high-grade copper-gold mineralisation at the 5.3Moz Shanac deposit.

Results from the zone returned 21.6m at 3.7g/t AuEq from 473.5m, including 5.7m at 9.7g/t AuEq and 18.2m at 3.7g/t AuEq from 548.8m, including 6m at 6.8g/t AuEq.

The new zone, which remains open in all directions, returned grades of up to 6.8% copper, the highest copper grades ever encountered at Shanac.

Other new results from Shanac included 172.5m at 1.3g/t AuEq from 322.6m, including 32m at 1.2g/t AuEq and 58.5m at 2.7g/t AuEq, including 10m at 3.1g/t AuEq; and 309.3m at 1.2g/t AuEq from 264.3m, including 102.4m at 2g/t AuEq, including 61.8m at 2.4g/t AuEq.

“Pretty happy with these results so far,” Strickland managing director Paul L’Herpiniere said during a webinar this week.

Assays are pending for three holes at Shanac, which will feed into an updated resource estimate later this year.

Eight rigs operating

Strickland is planning to drill 50,000m at Rogozna this year.

Another focus for the company this year has been the gold-rich Gradina deposit.

Around 20,000m had been drilled at Gradina previously, but Strickland is drilling around 20,000m more to allow it to define a maiden resource.

Drilling this year has returned results such as 62.7m at 3.5g/t gold from 386m, including 27.8m at 6.3g/t gold and 19.6m at 7g/t gold from 377m.

Mineralisation, which has been defined over 1km of strike, remains open up-dip towards surface, down-dip and along strike.

“At Gradina, we do get really beautiful high grades. It is the most high-grade of the deposits,” L’Herpiniere said.

“It has the best metallurgical recovery at around 90% into a gold concentrate, so it is pretty important when we think of a development pathway for the project.

“We are really considering Gradina alongside Shanac in terms of being the potential first cab off the rank and we’ve got a lot of scoping study work going on in the background trying to figure out which of those two gives the best bang for buck.

“Shenac is obviously a lot bigger, but Gradina is a lot higher grade, so it’ll be a bit of a balancing act there.” 

Last year, the company made the Kotlovi discovery, 350m west of the 1.28Moz Medenovac deposit, with 2025 drilling focused on defining the scale of the mineralisation.

Strickland will also test the project’s porphyry potential.

“Normally, when you’ve got this scale of skarn alteration and mineralisation, there’s often a porphyry copper-gold deposit lurking somewhere nearby that’s driving the whole system,” L’Herpiniere said.

“In the central part of our project area, the geology at surface is masked by a younger volcanic sequence. This volcanic sequence isn’t necessarily thick. It’s probably only 50-100m thick, but importantly, it masks the underlying geology which hosts the mineralisation, so that’s why we don’t see much geochemical anomalism.

“It’d be very unlikely to have all of this mineralisation all around the edge of that and not have something sitting underneath, so we’ve got a big program of geophysics underway in the central part of this project area as we speak as we try to find some more targets for testing later in the year.”

Well-funded with big backing

Earlier this week, Strickland completed the divestment of its Yandal gold project in Western Australia to Gateway Mining for A$45 million worth of Gateway shares.

Strickland distributed 80% of the 1.2 billion shares received to its shareholders this week.

The company finished the June quarter with A$32.7 million in cash and Northern Star Resources shares, while its new Gateway shares are worth around A$9 million.

Chinese major Zijin Mining invested A$5 million in Strickland in April.

“We have a lot of confidence by the fact that the world’s fourth-largest mining company, Zijin, the most active company in Serbia, the fastest-growing mining company in the world over the past decade, has backed us in,” L’Herpiniere said.

Shares in Strickland have risen by more than 60% this year and have traded as high as A17c in recent weeks.

Canaccord Genuity analyst Paul Howard has a A43c price target for Strickland.

“The only other question now if I was a new investor coming in is what does the next couple of years look like? Because I talk about the next six months, but I don’t necessarily talk about what the ultimate endgame here is,” L’Herpiniere said.

“I do get asked a lot is Strickland going to mine Serbia and the answer to that is we’re doing everything we can to end up on that path.

“We’re trying to emulate what Adriatic Metals has done, but I would be very surprised if someone doesn’t come along in the meantime and either acquire Strickland, or at the very least, partner with us to develop this project to its ultimate potential.”