Recent diamond drilling has hit a new mineralised zone 250m north of Tarrina Resources’ (ASX: TR8) Christmas Gift mine, which targeted a high-priority magnetic low seen on geophysics with anomalous gold at surface, and intersected the same geology as the historically drilled and mined area which hosts assays including 8m at 17.23g/t Au from 12m and 13m at 13.20g/t Au from 68m – as well as recording previous production of 30koz at a superb grade of 18g/t Au. Most of the 2.5km strike at the project is still yet to be drilled and there is limited testing below 30m in the areas that are, but this step-out hole lays the ground for increasing the scale of the project and a subsequent drilling campaign. These targets are based on the updated 2D and 3D geological model that was highly anticipated post-IPO, which sets up a fantastically similar scenario for the same team that turned the flagship Bullabulling Project of $1.73 billion market cap Minerals 260 (ASX: MI6) from a 401koz deposit that was thought to be tapped out into a 3.7Moz monster – so TR8 is the perfect group to test what lies beyond the existing resources and historical workings at Christmas Gift.

TR8 drilled near historical intersections to validate grade continuity and extend depth, as well as test lookalike targets for major extensions to the North. The first hole was right near high-grade assays such as 13m at 13.2g/t Au from 68m and 4m at 3.9g/t Au from 54m, and it hit sulphide and silicification from 60m to 90m as expected before being terminated due to encountering mine workings. A follow up hole was drilled to navigate the void and it also hit sulphide and silicification between 63m and 96m – but went on to discover a second mineralised zone from 264m to 302m. The company expects to achieve results similar to historic holes, which would be a brilliant result that should reaffirm to the market the excellent grades the deposit hosts at its existing mineralised location. There was also a third hole drilled just slightly to the North of the first two, which hit minor sulphide and silicification between 51m and 61m and should be in line with historical results.

The extremely exciting development is the hole that was drilled 250m north of the Christmas Gift mine and intersected sulphide mineralisation from 80m to 90m, and again from 135m to 141m, as well as quartz reef similar to what has been mined at Christmas Gift from 86m to 89m. TR8 again expects similar results here, which would be a significant validation of the potential scale of the project and the exploration model utilised to discover it. The company chased a down-dip extension of this hole at an angle of 50 degrees with a follow up hole about 50m north, which also encouragingly hit quartz reef and similar geology from 90m to 122m along with sporadic bands of sulphide mineralisation down to 220m.

This campaign also confirmed other key factors that bolster TR8’s working thesis on the controls and associations of mineralisation, such as confirming the correlation between zinc and copper as pathfinder elements for locating gold. TR8 observed the presence of zinc in sphalerite, copper in chalcopyrite and pyrite mineralisation with silica and carbonate alteration in the drill cores. In total there were 6 holes drilled for 1,180m – and the assays are due any day now. This campaign is just the beginning for what TR8 plans to complete at Christmas Gift this year, with extensional RC drilling set to commence in a couple of months – which will be greatly informed by the extensive amount of critical data learned from this campaign – before resource definition drilling begins in Q4.

There has also been an exciting development at TR8’s Walparuta copper and gold project, which will be diamond drilled in Q3 and has been further proven to share geological, alteration and geophysical characteristics with the regional IOCG deposits belonging to $200 million market cap Havilah Resources (ASX: HAV), being the 12.5Mt at 1.5% Cu, 0.16% Co and 0.2g/t Au Mutaroo project and the gigantic 245Mt Kalkaroo project, which contains 1.1Mt Cu, 3.1Moz Au and 23.2Kt of Co – and is being developed by $8 billion Sandfire Resources (ASX: SFR). TR8 built a unified 3D geological model that integrated high‑resolution airborne magnetics, high‑resolution ground gravity, geological mapping, petrophysics, and 3D inversion modelling. This identified a strong magnetic and gravity anomaly beginning immediately down-dip and to the south-east of the known copper-gold breccia, around 70m below the area targeted by historic drilling and extending about 400m to the south while also thickening at depth. Importantly, historic drilling had been directed toward the north-western edge of the mine breccia, effectively away from this stronger south-eastern anomaly – but still hit intercepts such as 9.1m at 0.80% Cu and 0.53g/t Au from 57.9m – so TR8 will direct its maiden drilling campaign in this new target direction to test the massive anomaly, after conducting more geophysics.

TR8 has $3 million in cash and has drifted down to a mere $6.8 million market cap in the recent gold sell-off and market turbulence, but only 7 weeks ago spiked up to $13.2 million as the company announced that diamond drilling had commenced after the 2,241m of historic core had been relogged and an extensive auger soil sampling campaign was in progress, which has now been completed with 2,536 samples collected. Investors can get almost a 50% discount on results that at this point look like they will be positive, due to the market and gold sell off brought on by the Iran war. We initiated on TR8 at IPO when it was $8.5 million market cap with $4.5 million in cash for a $4 million enterprise value, and there has been an enormous amount of encouraging data collected since then. The first article can be read here.

We initially referenced Xpedra Resources (ASX: XPD) – which used to be THB – as a relevant peer comparison. We initiated on XPD at $0.01/share in August when gold was US$3,377/oz, before it ran to a $20 million market cap at $0.034/share a couple months later and gold hit US$4,208/oz, with the key catalyst that drove being the acquisition of a similar looking gold project in terms of historical production and solid assays over a small strike of 500m, but with serious extensions to test. A more recent example is Recharge Metals (ASX: REC), which snapped up from a $5.65 million market cap to an effective $67.7 million when factoring in the placement, entitlement offer and acquisition cost dilution. This was for a project that contains just a 94.5koz at 1g/t Au resource, but also a 10km mineralised corridor that warrants more drilling – and REC’s market cap still sits at $32 million even after the recent retracement.

The heavily data-driven type of paradigm shift in exploration strategy that TR8 is implementing is exactly what we were hoping to see from CEO Greg Partington, who has executed this play on a number of other projects that became large-cap crown jewels. The most notable example is the Bullabulling deposit, which he acquired at 410koz before turning it into a 3.7Moz monster at a discovery cost of just $5/oz – and a 2.3Moz section of this asset is now being developed by MI6, which also saw Tim Goyder cornerstone the IPO raise and aggressively buy on market. The Tampia Gold Mine’s journey from 310koz to 695koz was also led by Greg, before it was taken over and put into production by Ramelius Resources (ASX: RMS).

The location of this campaign’s diamond drill holes in relation to historic drilling and mine workings can be seen below, which depicts the northern extension that TR8 has gone for:

Source: TR8

The reduced-to-pole (RTP) magnetic data below shows regional scale faults and the low magnetic intensity anomaly that is a high-priority target (it is zoomed out about 5x from the image above):

Source: TR8

Below is a map where Christmas Gift is located in NSW, along with the regional geological features – including key fault zones – and nearby operating mines, which include monsters such as the 60Moz AuEq Cadia Ridgeway and 9Moz Au Cowal:

Source: TR8

The gravity and magnetic anomalies at Walparuta can be seen below, highlighting how the highest priority target hasn’t been drilled and the nearby drill holes that intersected a weaker but similar anomaly encountered mineralisation, with assays such as 36.6m at 0.37% Cu and 0.27g/t Au from 39.6m including 9.1m at 0.80% Cu and 0.53g/t Au from 57.9m:

Source: TR8

TR8’s portfolio has all of the key components that we look for in terms of potential big prize targets, existing amounts of mineralisation that is more than defendable at the current valuation, located in great jurisdictions and with proven management that are analysing every piece of data available. With assays due imminently and an onslaught of drilling planned for the rest of the year – the market should begin to wake up to TR8.

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Disclaimer: This article is for informational and marketing purposes only, and does not constitute financial advice or a recommendation to invest. All opinions expressed are our own. We may receive fees or other forms of compensation in connection with the publication of this content, and may own shares in any of the mentioned companies. Please do your own research and seek professional advice before making any investment decisions.