Twenty Seven Co is going all in on gold. The former cobalt focussed explorer will drill its Rover gold project, a stone’s throw from high profile discoveries made by Spectrum Metals (ASX:SPX) and St George Mining (ASX:SGQ).

Cobalt was on a miserable cyclical downturn (until recently, thanks to Glencore), which prompted the cabal of cobalt-focussed explorers to dip their collective toe into more popular metals, like gold.

Twenty Seven Co (ASX:TSC) was one of these companies. It says the re-rating in the gold price over the past 12 months to above US$1500/oz ($2190/oz) “materially enhanced the prospectivity” of its Rover Project in WA’s Goldfields region.

“Due to the favourable macro backdrop and recent exploration success by Spectrum Metals and Cobre Pty Ltd, the region is presently undergoing a resurgence in exploration that has precipitated a pegging rush,” chairman Robert Scott said in the company’s Annual Report.

“Notably, Cobre’s success at the Perrinvale project, which is ~20km south of the Rover Project, highlights the potential for VMS mineralisation in the Cook Well greenstone belt. “

In March, privately held Cobre intersected very high-grade volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) base metal and gold mineralisation at shallow depth.

This included 5m at 9.8 per cent copper, 3.2g/t gold, 34g/t silver, 3.1 per cent zinc.

High-grade VMS systems are very rare globally, with the last significant deposit in Australia discovered more than a decade ago by Sandfire Resources (ASX:SFR), Cobre exec director Martin Holland said at the time.

At Rover, Twenty Seven Co has identified over twenty targets along the two greenstone belts that run along its east and west boundaries:

Now, the explorer has appointed a drilling contractor to conduct up to 2000m of drilling at Rover, once regulatory approvals are granted.

The priority prospects for drilling include shallow historic economic gold intercepts at ‘Creasy 1’ and New gold / VMS targets around ‘Creasy 2’.

“The geology team has conducted an extremely thorough review of all critical inputs and formulated a top-tier drilling campaign designed to deliver optimal results,” Twenty Seven Co chief exec Ian Warland says.

“TSC looks forward to updating shareholders on progress over the balance of the year.”