A 13,700m diamond drilling campaign will test the large-scale gold and high-grade tungsten prospects at Resolution Minerals’ (ASX: RML) Horse Heaven project, with 45 holes set to follow up on outstanding assays such as 253m at 1.5g/t Au from surface and 197.5m at 1.26g/t from 34m for expansion and infill resource drilling at Golden Gate, as well as extensions to historical tungsten mine workings that previously produced at 1.5-2.03% WO3 – and a massive 500m by 600m soil anomaly area that could be a big new tungsten discovery. Antimony Ridge was awarded the highly advantageous and coveted US FAST-41 Transparency designation, and approvals are expected to be expedited for an extensive 250 drill hole campaign that will test over 100 identified veins with grades up to 50% Sb, 1,420g/t Ag and 3.68g/t Au. This was followed by a $20 million placement cornerstoned by Tribeca and L1 Capital – positioning RML with a $28.2 million war chest and a clear runway to deliver on numerous significant catalysts. RML’s senior management and directors just completed a 1 week trip to the US, with meetings in Washington DC, presentations at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, a site visit to the maiden drilling campaign location in Idaho, meetings with senior White House officials and other government officers, industry leaders, investment banks and strategic partners.
Tungsten has continued its meteoric rise outside of China over the past few weeks, touching a high of US$3,185/mtu in Rotterdam to make a 350% gain so far this year and 900% over the past 12 months – while the 1st of January 2027 ban of the military procurement of tungsten from China, Russia, North Korea and Iran is fast approaching. Washington is pushing for a national security premium on critical minerals, and it has many tools it can utilise – the most apparent being a price floor as was seen in the US$110/kg guarantee it gave MP Materials (NYSE: MP) for its NdPr, which was followed by the market pushing prices to US$125/kg in Europe and the US. China’s prices are still not far behind the Rotterdam figure, which reflects the genuine supply squeeze taking place, and RML is gunning to take advantage of this extremely favourable environment through both its aggressive exploration plan and its recently acquired Johnson Creek mill – which came with 2,000t of ore grading 1.85% WO3. Mineral processing testwork just demonstrated that the ore, which came from the Gold Gate Tungsten Mine, is clearly amenable to simple gravity flotation processing after achieving a 52.3% WO3 concentrate with up to 75.5% recovery rates – and further testing is in progress on a 50kg sample.
3D modelling at Antimony Ridge has identified over 100 mineralised veins that are grouped into 30 vein swarms across a 1000m by 700m area, and have numerous ultra high-grade assays between 30-50% Sb, 250-1,420g/t Ag and up to 3.68g/t Au – while being contained in a broader zone of veinlets and stockworks that grade between 0.5-2% Sb, which is still an excellent grade. CEO of US operations Craig Lindsay stated that given the consistency of vein frequency and vein swarms, there is a high probability that future work will uncover more veins and extend the length and width of the vein system. RML has big plans for Antimony Ridge, and will soon commence a significant bulk sampling program of high-grade antimony ore along with the drilling program of up to 250 holes.
The prospect has historical production of over 1,000t of antimony that graded an astounding 45% Sb, and RML just recently produced 99.38 wt% antimony trioxide – while also achieving between 72.2% and 76% antimony recoveries in initial metallurgical testwork that produced concentrate grades between 23.6% and 27.3% Sb. Importantly, the initial rougher stage of flotation achieved 99.5% sulphur recovery, with 24% of the antimony being hosted in oxide minerals – implying a near total recovery of sulphide mineralisation in the form of stibnite, which RML expects to dominate the feed source during mining.
In the lead up to RML’s imminent Nasdaq listing, which will open up the company to American institutional investors, Brett Lynch also joined the board after being a senior strategic advisor since July 2025, which is an excellent addition for RML’s US development plans given he took Sayona Mining (ASX: SYA) – now Elevra Lithium Ltd (ASX: ELV) – from an $18 million market cap to a peak of over $3 billion during his tenure as Managing Director. He specifically noted RML as having the essential support of the US Government needed to capitalise on the strategic importance of critical defence minerals, while being in the right place at the right time.
RML shot up to $0.077 and traded well over $10 million of volume on the day of the Fast-41 announcement, and reached as high as $0.084 on heavy volume in the two weeks that followed, before the placement was completed at $0.07 – a 6.3% premium to the 20-day VWAP. It is currently trading at a 9% discount to the placement price at $0.064, which results in a $162.4 million market cap after accounting for the new shares to be issued, and a $28.2 million cash balance equates to a $134.2 million enterprise value. RML’s shareholder base also includes John Hancock’s Family Office – Astrotricha Capital SEZC – as well as Next Investors.
The end of last year’s drilling campaign finished with 14 holes across 3,780m and produced some large assays that had exciting mineralisation continuity, and left some seriously high priority targets prime for testing both along strike and at depth. There is potential for a very large scale discovery given the extensive geological similarities to the neighbouring 6Moz Stibnite mine – which is just 5km away and owned by US$3.8 billion market cap Perpetua Resources (NASDAQ: PPTA).
The assays that came out of Golden Gate North were highly encouraging, with the stand out holes having thick intervals of higher grade material within the headline figures while also ending in significant mineralisation, such as 197.5m at 1.26g/t Au from 34m including 2.9m at 2.32g/t Au from 94.4m and 70.8m at 2.24g/t Au from 128.8m, as well as 253m at 1.50g/t Au from surface including 111.9m at 2.31g/t Au from 130.5m and 18.3m at 3.98g/t Au from 149.4m and peak of 1.5m at 5.91g/t Au. The lower grade holes also had some decent intervals, but importantly demonstrated the right type of continuity that warrants following up on, such as 240.8m at 0.64g/t Au from surface including 61.6m at 0.98g/t Au from 40.5m and 35.8m at 0.83g/t Au from 119.5m. RML has the opportunity to learn from the data gathered about what these holes intersected and try to find something similar to Stibnite, which is composed of numerous deposits that make up its headline 6Moz figure. We previously highlighted Stibnite’s main orebody, 2.7Moz Yellow Pine pit, as being contained across a strike of 427m, a width between 50–198m, and with down-dip continuity to a depth of 366m. RML is currently exploring a refined 2km strike at Golden Gate that encompasses both the North, a gap in the middle and also the South, where higher-grade extensions of the key discovery hole of 99.31m at 0.38g/t Au from surface are being sought.
The map of Golden Gate below outlines the planned drill holes of this campaign and the 2km of strike that the North and South prospects sit on, along with some of the standout assays from the last program and the interpreted fault lines:
Source: RML
The antimony in soil geochemical anomaly map below highlights how the high-grade veins in vein swarms occur within moderate grade veinlets and stockworks, which could allow for less selective mining that takes whole sections of vein swarms along with the surrounding material – once drilling confirms this continuity. It also overlays assays, rock chip samples and soil geochemistry with a 3D shaded image that represents the topography, with this area containing past pits and trenches – and the total mineralised corridor having dimensions that extend to 1,000m long, 700m wide and 250m vertically:
Source: RML
The tungsten price chart below shows a truly extreme and unrelenting explosion that has mostly been matched internally in China. These price levels are well beyond the costs that new Western production could come online at, and there are a multitude of factors including defence stockpiling that will likely force elevated demand to persist even in this unprecedentedly high price environment:
Source: The Oregon Group, Bloomberg and Asian Metal Inc
Here is Brett Lynch presenting RML at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago:
Source: RML
Below is a photo from the recent site visit to Horse Heaven and the drill core that has come out of the project:
Source: RML
Initial assays from this drilling campaign should begin to come through in a few weeks time and there is still further metallurgical work to come on the tungsten and antimony front – so RML is in for a period of high impact newsflow that has strong potential to reveal significant upside at Horse Heaven.
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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.