Kristie Batten: Terrain gets the Lightning jolt it’s been chasing

One of Australia’s top mining journalists, Kristie Batten, writes for Stockhead every week in her regular column placing a watchful eye on the movers and shakers of the small cap resources scene.

Despite the raging bull market, there is still a Western Australian gold explorer out there with a market capitalisation of just $10 million.

Terrain Minerals (ASX:TMX) is one of the more low-key WA gold explorers.

The company’s flagship project is Smokebush, 350km north of Perth in the Murchison region.

Its neighbour to the north is Warriedar Resources, which is subject to a $188 million takeover by mid-tier gold producer Capricorn Metals, while Capricorn’s Mt Gibson development project sits to the south.

Vault Minerals’ Rothsay gold mine is also 10km from Smokebush.

Terrain has been working on the project for the past six years but executive director Justin Virgin admitted the company had not attracted much attention.

However, he believes it has recently made a breakthrough.

“We did some geophysics, which has sort of turned our understanding around,” Virgin told Stockhead.

“We did an IP survey, and then we did some drilling around Christmas, which confirmed a new theory.

“This program’s a larger follow-up on the new theory, which has been pretty exciting.

“I think we’ve been drilling in the wrong spot … our understanding of what we have is evolving, and it’s getting to the point now that it’s getting very, very exciting.”

Lightning strikes twice

Terrain reported two sets of high-grade gold results from the Lightning prospect in September.

Early in the month, Terrain reported a hit of 22m at 2.71 grams per tonne gold from 105m at the Lightning structure.

The company said the results suggested that the Lightning & Monza gold prospect had the potential to host thick zones of gold mineralisation with gold grades consistent with those reported by others across the Yalgoo-Singleton Greenstone Belt.

Last week, Terrain reported a series of high-grade gold intercepts from Lightning, including 13m at 8.13g/t gold from 122m, including 2m at 48.22g/t gold; 17m at 3.43g/t gold from 147m, including 2m at 17.17g/t gold; 22m at 2.71g/t gold from 105m; and 1m at 18.04g/t gold from 124m.

The 4995m, 22-hole reverse circulation program intersected gold mineralisation in 17 of 21 drill holes, equating to an 80% success rate, representing the strongest results to date from Smokebush.

“We have all the geological pieces in place to be a very typical West Australian-style deposit, like the Super Pit, like St Ives, like these big ones that have dolerite as a sponge which has captured the gold, and it appears that we have multiple of these dolerites in there,” Virgin said.

Polymetallic sweetener?

Terrain is now awaiting assays for base metals and silver.

A previous hole, reported in March, returned 11m at 6.03g/t gold and 43.5g/t silver from 75m.

“They should be back in the next few weeks, and they’ll tell us if there’s a silver component, which the past results suggest there is, which is exciting,” Virgin said.

As for base metals, there are other deposits less than 100km away, including 29Metals’ Golden Grove copper-zinc mine and Vault’s Deflector gold-copper mine.

Smokebush is also prospective for both rare earth elements and gallium.

In November 2024, Terrain released an independently prepared exploration target for the Larin’s Lane prospect at Smokebush.

The target, covering less than 5% of the target area, is 25-33 million tonnes at 880-980 parts per million total rare earth oxide and 19-21g/t gallium.

A metallurgical study, with the support of Minerals Research Institute of WA and the WA government, is due in the current quarter.

Planning underway

Terrain will await the base metal and silver assays before it plans its next drill program.

“The plan is probably around a 3000m follow-up program,” Virgin said.

“There’s probably still a few questions to be answered.”

An IP survey has also been completed at the Wildflower prospect, a 1000m by 500m gold-in-soil anomaly near Rothsay.

“That’s actually shaping up quite nicely too, so if we go back, we probably want to go do some drill testing down there at the same time, instead of mobilising two rigs separately, try and do it all at one hit,” Virgin said.

“So we’re basically waiting for more information to come back on both areas.”

If Terrain continues to have drilling success, the plan would be to aim for an initial resource in mid-2026.

“Obviously, there’s a lot more drilling to be done between now and then, but I don’t think it’s out of the question,” Virgin said.