Strata Minerals preps for gold drilling at Penny South
Mining
Mining
Special Report: Battery metals turned gold explorer Strata Minerals is kicking off the new year with a maiden drilling program at Penny South, designed to uncover geological information along strike from one of WA’s highest grade gold mines.
The targeted drill positions are immediately south of the high-grade Penny West and Penny North gold deposits, which are currently being mined by Ramelius Resources (ASX:RMS).
Ramelius’ Penny mine, southeast of Mt Magnet, is a freak of nature – estimated to contain 440,000t at a whopping 22g/t of gold, equating to 320,000oz.
Those grades make the WA gold mine extraordinarily profitable, even with a trip to process at the Mt Magnet mill.
When first discovered by Spectrum Metals, it turned the long-time battler into a $208m takeover target for mid-tier RMS.
Strata’s (ASX:SMX) Penny South project takes in a ~2.5km strike extension of the Penny West Shear, just 550m from Ramelius’ Penny deposits in the southern Youanmi Greenstone Belt.
With RMS sitting on just four years of life at Penny, could Strata follow in Spectrum’s footsteps? We’re getting closer to finding out.
Strata is looking to test the interpreted down-plunge mineralised trend as well as down-dip extensions of anomalous intersections in shallow historical drilling.
SMX has been reviewing all available Penny South Project data since acquiring the project back in September 2024.
Over 1000 drill holes have been previously carried out, consisting of mainly RAB and AC holes with RC holes accounting for only ~3% of the drill holes and no diamond drilling.
The average downhole length of the historical drill holes within Penny South is ~42m with only 18 holes deeper than 100m and 7 holes deeper than 200m.
SMX has reinterpreted all available data and will now test two priority targets at depth.
It echoes the successful strategy followed by Spectrum Metals, which reported outstanding exploration success at Penny North and at the southern end of the Penny West pit within deeper drill holes beneath cover.
“It’s great to be kicking off the year with Strata’s maiden drill program at Penny South which is due to commence in only a few weeks’ time,” Strata managing director Peter Woods said.
“We are very excited to see what the drilling uncovers at two of our main priority targets which are only 500m directly south and along strike from one of WA’s highest grading gold mines currently in production.”
Field work is also due to begin at another one of Strata’s projects, which is next door to a major WA gold operation, AngloGold and Regis Resources (ASX:RRL) Tropicana Mine, regularly one of Australia’s top 5 gold producers.
“In addition to drilling at Penny South, we will be commencing field work at our Biranup project which is highly prospective for gold and also next door and along trend from another major gold operation in WA being the +5Moz Tropicana gold mine,” Woods added.
“The company has not previously explored for gold at the project and there are multiple significant high priority gold targets that require immediate follow up work.”
Strata believes there is significant value to add with a refocus on gold exploration at the Project.
This article was developed in collaboration with Strata 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.