Barry FitzGerald: Three junior explorers looking for the next major Aussie discovery

Wouldn’t it be nice if the junior exploration sector were to notch up a major discovery before the end of the year?

The sector could certainly do with one. Leverage to a game-changing discovery is the fun part of the mining game but you’ve got to be drilling to make it happen.

So Garimpeiro went off to find some juniors with exposure to high-risk but potentially high-reward drilling programs in coming weeks and months.

He has settled on the three listed below. The common theme is copper and gold, with Garimpeiro hoping he can one day add lithium and nickel explorers back into the mix.

GREAT WESTERN EXPLORATION (ASX:GTE)

Trading mid-week at 2.9c a share for a market cap of $12.6m.

GTE unashamedly has exploration for giant copper-gold discoveries as its raison d’être.

And it reckons its Oval and Oval South copper-gold targets near Meekatharra in WA might just have what it takes to win in the big-time discovery stakes.

The WA government reckons the two targets are worth a crack as its Exploration Incentive Scheme is stumping up 50% of the drilling costs (capped at $113,000) which is a nice helping hand for a junior like GTE.

Having said that, GTE earlier this month raised $3.5m from a share placement at 2.6c a share with attached one-for-one July 2025 options, exercisable at 8c each.

In a rare display of “we’re all in this together,” GTE directors put their hands up for $460,000 of the placement.

Oval and Oval South were originally defined as targets back in the late 1990s by Rio Tinto, which went on to drill a hole to a depth of 232m but stopped after intersecting siltstones/shales.
Advances in geophysical techniques since suggest the Rio hole pulled up 70m short of a conductor picked up in more recent times up by GTE, with work by Sandfire before it headed off to Africa and Spain also defining gravity highs overlying the anomaly.

Sandfire is long gone after spending $4.5m on the project area, meaning it’s back at 100% GTE ownership.

GTE is on the record as saying the prospects share a long list of attributes with the big Winu (Rio Tinto) and Havieron (Newmont/Greatland Gold) deposits up in the Paterson province.

We’re about to find out what Oval and Oval South have to offer as four drill holes (two in each) are about to put them to the test. Given its modest market cap, GTE’s leverage to success is extreme.
No guarantees but certainly worth a shot. Garimpeiro reckons a name change for the prospects to Raison d’être 1 and 2 should be considered by GTE should it enjoy success with the program.

Just an idea.

KINCORA COPPER (ASX:KCC)

Trading mid-week at 5.2c a share for a market cap of $12.8m. It is chasing big time copper and gold in central west NSW in a farm-in joint venture with the world’s fourth biggest gold producer AngloGold Ashanti.

Kincora is looking for the next world-scale deposit in the Macquarie Arc, which is already home to the Cadia, Cowal and Northparkes mines, in extensions to the region’s prospective geology beneath cover at the Nyngan project.

AngloGold has the right to earn an 80% interest by spending up to $50m, with Kincora to manage the drilling program for a 10% fee. Drilling is slotted to start in mid-September and will be one to watch.

It is the maiden drill program for the joint venture, with drilling to test up to eight large-scale intrusive complex targets. Kincora is as excited as a junior explorer can be about these things.

“We are very excited by the potential of the Northern Junee-Narromine belt (home to the targets) where we are seeking not just to confirm a new significant porphyry copper-gold deposit but a new district and series of discoveries.’’

Given the value of a big porphyry system can be measured in multi-billion dollars, having ‘’only’’ a 20% share of the action – should in fact AngloGold go on to spend the full $50m – is a sensible de-risking exercise for the lightly capitalised Kincora.

It has gone down the same pathway in Mongolia’s southern Gobi where it has long been active searching for the next giant Oyu Tolgoi (Rio Tinto) copper-gold deposit. KCC has recently brought in the small but technically savvy ASX-listed Woomera Mining (ASX:WML) to pick up the running in a $US4m farm-in deal for an 80% interest.

GREAT SOUTHERN MINING (ASX:GSN)

Trading at 1.7c mid-week a share for a market cap of $14.3m, GSN is working away at its Duketon gold project in WA’s Eastern Goldfields.
It has a bunch of advanced prospects which could quickly build a significant resource in what is a record gold price environment.

But today’s interest is in its Edinburgh Park project, 130km south-east of Townsville, which is prospective for gold-copper porphyry mineralisation as well as epithermal gold-silver-copper mineralisation.

South African gold giant Gold Fields likes the potential so much it has signed up to earn up to a 75% interest by spending up to $15m, as well as taking a 4.5% placement of shares in Great Southern.
The partners got busy with geophysics last year and drilling is expected to start in the back half of this year.

It can be suggested that the company’s current market cap is justified by its Duketon gold project, where expected strong newsflow could change things in a hurry. That means the market is giving no value for the Edinburgh Park project.

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