Thunderbird gearing up for drilling next to Larvotto’s Hillgrove gold-antimony project

NSW has been in the headlines in recent weeks due to the wide gold intersections reported by Koonenberry Gold.

This week, one of the bigger pieces of news was the release of Larvotto Resources’ definitive feasibility study for its Hillgrove gold-antimony project.

At spot gold and antimony prices of US$3000 per ounce and US$57,000 per tonne respectively, the DFS returned a post-tax net present value of A$1.26 billion, internal rate of return of 153% and payback period of just eight months.

Even at the more conservative pricing of US$2800/oz of gold and US$41,000/t of antimony, the project has an NPV of A$694 million, IRR of 102% and payback period of 11 months.

Thunderbird acquired more than 600sqkm of ground in NSW late last year. The boundary of its Rockvale project is within 2km of Hillgrove, while its Kookabookra project sits to the north.

Both projects contain multiple high-grade gold occurrences and historical workings.

“It’s a new project and a new direction for the company in really hot commodities in a fantastic neighbourhood with the likes of Larvotto and Koonenberry – Larvotto is our next door neighbour and Koonenberry is just a little bit to the south,” Thunderbird executive chairman George Ventouras said.

“It’s certainly becoming a hot spot for exploration.”

Hitting the ground

Since acquisition, Thunderbird has compiled and thoroughly reviewed all the exploration data on the tenements to get a better idea of the potential.

The company has been working through the process of securing land access agreements with local farmers.

“It just takes a bit of time, so we’ve been busy doing that, which is building momentum,” Ventouras said.

With the co-operation of landholders, Thunderbird has recently been on the ground completing early field work and rock chip sampling, the results of which are due shortly.

Previous rock chip results from Rockvale have included grades of up to 76 grams per tonne gold, 18.2% antimony and 4350g/t silver, while historical results at Kookabookra have included grades of up to 42.6g/t.

Thunderbird is hoping to start drilling in June or July.

Ventouras said the initial program would likely be modest and focus on testing some of the historical results.

Kookabookra is slightly more advanced given the Mannix prospect has been lightly drilled in the past.

“There’s some sniffs. There’s some smoke. We think there’s some fire there, so we’re doing some soils and some chipping around there now to firm up where the halo mineralisation is and put some holes there,” Ventouras said.

“To the east of where that drilling is, we believe there’s enormous opportunity for gold, so that’s something that we’ll probably look to drill first as a roughie.

“There’s a lot of smoke in that area. It’s never been drilled, very lightly explored, historical workings, so we think it augurs well for a discovery.”

Plenty of upside

Thunderbird also has a 30% stake in Firetail Resources’ Picha copper project in Peru.

Earlier this year, Picha was selected as one of only eight global projects to take part in BHP’s 2025 Xplor program.

Aside from non-dilutive funding, the exploration accelerator also provides participants with technical support from BHP.

Firetail has a program underway to investigate the project’s porphyry potential.

Thunderbird also has uranium projects in Canada’s Athabasca Basin, which it is considering joint venturing or divesting in order to fully focus on NSW.

Thunderbird’s market capitalisation is sitting at just A$4 million, meaning its highly leveraged to exploration success at Rockvale and Kookabookra.

“We’re really trading at shell value at the moment – it’s a very, very low base,” Ventouras said.

“And if we get some good numbers on our rock chips, and we get some good success on our exploration, it won’t take much to move the dial on that.”

It’s not a stretch given the success of other companies in the region.

Larvotto shares are up by more than 40% this year and the company now has a market cap of A$330 million, while the A$70 million Koonenberry has enjoyed a 290% surge in its shares this year.

Another nearby explorer, Trigg Minerals, has jumped by about 40% over the past month and now has a market cap of A$35 million.

“It won’t take much to move the dial if we get a few numbers in and we have a bit of success,” Ventouras said.

“We could go from a A$4 million market cap to A$10 million or A$15 million or A$20 million reasonably easily.”