Future Battery Minerals uncovers six new gold anomalies at Burbanks East

• A review of historical exploration drilling and surface sampling data is complete at Burbanks East
• Six broad surface gold anomalies identified
• FBM remains well-funded to undertake all planned exploration through 2025 and beyond with a strong cash balance of A$7.4 million and zero debt

Special Report: An extensive review of historical exploration drilling and surface sampling data by Future Battery Minerals has identified six new gold anomalies at Burbanks East proving it is packed with potential.

After staking seven tenements to extend the Burbanks East tenure area near Coolgardie in June, FBM kicked off a review of all available historical data to better evaluate the expanded project’s untapped gold opportunity.

The new Burbanks East tenements, part of the broader Coolgardie project, cover a 5km strike of greenstone lithologies, prospective for gold and LCT pegmatites, bringing the landholding to more than 10km2 and the total Coolgardie project footprint to more than 75km2.

The review turned up six broad (>20ppb) gold anomalies with limited historical drill testing.

Investigation into shallow aircore and rotary blast drilling, conducted by companies such as Croesus Mining, Monarch Resource, Mt Kersey Mining and Cazaly Resources, highlighted a number of gold intercepts within regolith including:

• 8m at 3.37g/t gold from 32m;
• 6m at 1.84g/t Au from 44m; and
• 10m at 0.9g/t Au from 36m, including 2m at 3.1g/t Au. 

While most of the drilling is shallow in nature and wide spaced, many of the anomalous intercepts are poorly understood or not closed out and remain open to future testing.

Most of the anomalous surficial gold targets have no basement fresh rock drill testing, including a 2.7km striking target which has no reported exploration drilling.

Future Battery Minerals (ASX:FBM) believes the results of the review strongly validate its low-cost, systematic approach to exploration and contribute meaningfully to the company’s understanding of the surrounding region.

“Further gold upside”

FBM managing director and CEO Nick Rathjen said Burbanks East represented a compelling gold exploration opportunity that was complementary to its existing gold focused exploration strategy at Miriam.

Both projects are close to Coolgardie in WA’s long established mining province of the Eastern Goldfields, about 2.5km apart.

Burbanks East lies south along the same ultramafic package of bedrock which hosts Beacon Minerals (ASX:BCN) 132,000oz at 1.2g/t gold MacPhersons Reward gold mine.

“Within the span of a month, we have grown the Burbanks East project footprint five-fold and confirmed its robust gold potential through the identification of six broad surficial gold anomalies, showing limited to no evidence of historical drilling,” he said.

“We see Burbanks East adding further gold upside to the Coolgardie project and are currently undertaking a litho-structural review targeting prospective bedrock structures and intrusions to generate drill-ready targets at the project.”

Gold focused drilling at Miriam coming up

Rathjen said the company was excited to begin gold-focused drilling at Miriam this month, with the Forrest and Canyon targets offering strong prospectivity.

He said Forrest brought both extension and a potential near-term gold resource while Canyon offered potential discovery upside.

“With the Coolgardie project being 15km from operating gold mills, it holds multiple commercial pathways to be evaluated by the company as the targets advance through exploration,” he said.

FBM remains on track to begin initial RC drilling at Miriam in July.

Watch: Future Battery Minerals shining bright gold with new WA targets

In collaboration with Southern Geoscience, FBM is compiling the geophysical magnetic data of the Burbanks East area.

Once this data has been compiled, a detailed structural review of the bedrock will be conducted to identify structures or intrusions which may be significant for gold mineralisation.

FBM expects completion of this exercise and results to be released later in July 2025.

This article was developed in collaboration with Future Battery Minerals, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.