NSW puts critical minerals exploration on fast-track with grant rollout

• NSW is backing ASX explorers chasing critical minerals 
• Grants were handed out to 29 projects, with 21 of those holding exposure to critical minerals 
• Here’s a run down on some of the successful applicants 

The NSW Government has thrown its weight behind the state’s critical minerals sector, awarding $2.5m in grants over the next two years to 29 exploration projects as part of its ambitious bid to position the state as a global front runner in their supply.

Delivered through the Critical Minerals and High-Tech Metals Exploration Program, the funding will support drilling, geophysics and geochemistry exploration work aimed at uncovering new deposits.

It represents the largest single round of exploration funding ever offered in the state, and forms part of the Minns Labor Government’s Critical Minerals Strategy for 2024-35 as global critical minerals demand reaches fever pitch.

Copper prices are up nearly 20% this year, gallium prices are sitting 32% higher, while antimony prices surged from around US$10,000 in 2023 to ~US$60,000 per tonne in May 2025.

It comes as critical minerals shift into the ‘national interest’ category, triggering tighter export rules, trade barriers and scrutiny on who can invest as the energy demand accelerates.

The NSW Government data says roughly 21 of the 29 funded projects are targeting copper exploration, with state copper output rising about 30% over the past three years to ~190,000t this financial year.

This all points to strong tailwinds for juniors with the right commodity exposure, like successful applicants Legacy Minerals Holdings (ASX:LGM), Waratah Minerals (ASX:WTM) and Caspin Resources (ASX:CPN). 

Legacy’s two grant haul

Legacy Minerals has reeled in two grants under the NSW Government’s Critical Minerals and High-Tech Metals Exploration program, totalling $53,000.

The first grant supports geochemical work at the Thomson project in western NSW, one of the state’s largest tenement positions, where Legacy has a farm-in and JV option agreement with Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO).

Thomson shares similar characteristics with major intrusion related copper-gold (IRCG) districts, such as the Paterson Province in WA. where major discoveries include Winu (3Mt copper, 8Moz gold, 52Moz silver) and Havieron (7Moz gold, 300,000t copper).

Legacy owns a belt-scale exploration opportunity at the project with about 5500km2 of tenure under granted exploration licences.

The second grant covers the Rockley asset within the Ordovician Macquarie Arc volcanics, which hosts the world-class Cadia Valley, Northparkes, and Cowal copper-gold orebodies.

Rockley’s potential remains untested, with no previous systematic exploration and only a small number of shallow reconnaissance drilling carried out 25 years ago.

But an assessment in collaboration with the Geological Survey of NSW in 2019 found the project area to be prospective for porphyry-related copper-gold mineralisation.

The grant will cover ground geophysics work, with the company intending to use this as a precursor to drill testing.

Waratah’s porphyry hunt beside Cadia

Waratah Minerals inked a grant to cover deep porphyry exploration drilling at the Spur project, 5km west from Newmont’s Cadia Valley within the wider Lachlan Fold Belt.

At the end of the last quarter, the company completed a total 85 RC holes totalling 21,844m and 15 diamond holes totalling 5912m.

Ongoing drilling activity is designed to test zones of epithermal gold mineralisation within the Spur gold corridor where results include 208.7m at 1.17g/t gold from 514m, including 89m at 1.96g/t from 614m.

The explorer believes those results indicate a major extension by a further 500m to >1.5km along strike.

Funds from a $30m placement during the quarter will be spent towards extensional and resource drilling along the Spur gold corridor, metallurgical testwork and further target geochemistry and geophysics.

Caspin’s Kelpie showing room to triple resource size

Caspin will use the grant to kick off geophysical exploration at Bygoo within the Wagga Tin Belt in the Lachlan Fold Belt of NSW.

Bygoo is the company’s flagship project and surrounds the Ardlethan mine, one of Australia’s largest producing tin mines in the country before it closed in 1986.

A maiden inferred resource of 3.94Mt at 0.5% tin for 19,300t of contained tin was recently announced at the Kelpie deposit, which also holds a 12-20Mt exploration target at 0.35-0.50% tin.

While the exploration target outlines what’s currently known at Kelpie, it doesn’t take into account the huge areas to the north and southwest that have never been drill tested.

Kelpie extends over 1000m of strike and demonstrates potential for more than triple the maiden resource estimate.

Further drilling, due to begin in the December quarter (subject to environmental and land access approvals), will test extensions to mineralisation within the resource area and along strike within the exploration target.

Other successful grant applicants to keep an eye on

Gold-copper explorer Kincora Copper (ASX:KCC) was awarded more than $143,000 in grant funding to drill the first ever hole to basement geology at the Wongarbon project in NSW’s Macquarie Arc region.

The project is interpreted to host one of the few large and untested intrusive complexes in the area within a common transverse structure to Alkane Resources (ASX:ALK) 14.7Moz gold equivalent Boda and Kaiser porphyry discoveries.

Kincora secured Wongarbon last year directly from the state and, since then, has carried out a multi-phase agreement with Fleet Space Technologies supporting multiphysics and drilling to follow.

And G11 Resources (ASX:G11) has grant funding in the bag for a targeted in-line induced polarisation survey over the Wilandra project in NSW for 35-40 line kilometres.

The project is part of the wider Koonenberry asset area, 80km east of Broken Hill, and comprises a defined VMS copper zone over 4km of strike that is open in every direction.

It boasts an exploration target of 15.6-21.2Mt at 0.8-1.6% copper for 170-250,000t copper.

G11 hopes the survey will provide a cost-effective exploration method for the copper-rich VMS mineralisation, with similar methodology used at New World Resources (ASX:NWC) Antler deposit in Arizona, US.

At Stockhead we tell it like it is. While Legacy Minerals, Waratah Minerals and Caspin Resources are Stockhead advertisers, they did not sponsor this article.