Great Western Exploration (ASX:GTE) Managing Director Shane Pike says one of the key takeaways from this year’s Resources Rising Stars event on the Gold Coast is that the market is at the bottom of the cycle.
“Despite the junior exploration market being hammered, there is a general consensus that we are at the bottom of the cycle,” Pike tells Mining.com.au.
“This is supported by extremely high gold prices, which isn’t reflected in junior exploration company market valuations.
“Panel discussions highlighted that if interest rates were reduced, some of these funds would be directed back to the exploration sector.”
Pike adds that there has also been plenty of discussion around the industry needing a major discovery which will reinvigorate, and allow funds to flow back in.
Over 50 mining and exploration companies are exhibiting at this year’s event, which runs over two days at the RACV Royal Pines Resort on the Gold Coast.
It is Pike’s first time attending and he will be taking the stage at 4pm AEST today (4 September).
He says he has had plenty of conversations at the event.
Great Western is preparing to start drilling at its Oval and Oval South copper–gold targets by the end of September or early October.
Both targets are “Winu-style” intrusive-related copper-gold targets within the Yerrida North Copper-Gold Project in Western Australia.
The Winu Project, which was discovered by Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO) in 2017 and put the Paterson Province on the radar, is a copper-gold deposit located in the northern Pilbara region of Western Australia, about 320km east of Port Hedland.
Winu hosts total resources of 721 million tonnes @ 0.4% copper and 0.34g/t gold.
Rio Tinto actually identified the Oval target that Great Western is now exploring in the 1990s, but failed to intersect the electromagnetic anomaly.
Modern exploration undertaken in partnership between Great Western and Sandfire Resources (ASX:SFR) located the target below Rio Tinto’s drilling.
Great Western says the Oval target is an analogue of the giant Winu intrusive-related copper-gold deposit, sharing key geological attributes.
The Oval and Oval South targets are now solely owned by Great Western, which is planning to drill four holes into the two targets.
Pike says Great Western believes it will be “the largest copper-gold target that anyone will drill this year”.
The drilling program is due to be completed before the end of this year, with initial results expected around December/January.
Great Western recently topped up the coffers with a $3.5 million raising, which will ensure the company is fully funded for its high-impact exploration programs.
Write to Angela East at Mining.com.au
Images: Great Western Exploration
