Two diamond drill rigs are spinning as Irvine’s high impact extensions are targeted while infill drilling continues at St Arnaud in the lead up to production, with Aureka (ASX: AKA) chasing high-priority new discovery areas at refined exploration targets as well as working towards upgrading resource inventory to support near term production. AKA just boosted Irvine’s Inferred JORC MRE to 398koz at 2.59g/t Au, up from 304koz at 2.43g/t Au and with very clear expansion opportunities that are being drilled right now – with assays expected in the coming weeks. This drops AKA’s EV/Resource valuation to just $22/oz – a universally low figure before considering the 545koz of JORC exploration targets that have potential to be added. AKA is currently drilling new areas with major discovery potential, such as 900m north of Resolution at a high priority area identified through an IP anomaly, a magnetic low from the new survey and geochemical anomalism. Simultaneously, the company has conducted a mining study at St Arnaud’s Walkers Pit, which is currently being drilled to follow up on intercepts including 14m at 7.2g/t Au from 18m, and 2.2m at 27.4g/t Au from 63.2m. AKA has submitted a small scale development license application and will seek to rapidly utilise the existing road and pit ramp to mine ore straight from where production last finished.
The orebody at Resolution occupies 1.5km of strike and begins at surface before plunging south to a depth of 600m so far, with 43% of material suitable for open-pit and 57% for underground mining. This compares to the 5.3Moz Stawell Gold Mine under 17km away, which was last reported to be operating at 75% capacity and mining ore from 2km underground at around 2g/t Au – with grades occasionally dipping towards 1g/t Au – making AKA’s resource upgrade an increase in the value proposition for processing through the nearby multidecade mine.
The similarities in mineralisation style between Stawell and Irvine remain robust, and given the narrow widths present at these deposits – Resolution averages 2m that can increase to 5m on occasion – a high level of precision is needed when targeting extensions and new zones, which is often heavily guided by structural targeting. A highly prospective zone at Stawell labelled Magdala Deeps, which is a fault-offset extension of the Central Lode/Waterloo and Golden Gift lode systems, was discovered in 2010 with assays such as 1.8m at 4.53g/t Au and 3.6m at 3.83g/t Au that came from close to 2km deep – and is thought to contain over 500koz. Irvine has Stawell-style mineralisation that occurs around basalt dome margins, where deformation creates voids for quartz veining and gold deposition, with Resolution and Adventure’s mineralisation occurring on the eastern flank of the Irvine basalt dome.
The market clearly wants to see more of AKA’s scale potential proven with the drill bit, and there are two advanced exploration targets with the potential to add between 85koz at 2g/t Au and 197koz at 2.3g/t Au at Irvine that are currently being targeted. The first is immediately up dip of the Resolution lode, which given the strike extensions to the south, is highly likely to contain some level of mineralisation. The upper-limit volume of this ET is based on 540m strike, 400m down-dip, 3m width and 3.8g/cc density, and uses only fresh rock while also excluding the shallow aircore tested areas. This estimated the top end of the range at 900kt of ore and the lower at 450kt, with the grade estimates of 2-2.3g/t Au being drawn from the average grade of 2.16g/t Au at the Resolution Zone.
The second advanced ET is along strike from Resolution and could have double the tonnage of ET1, with the target area containing demagnetisation and an IP anomaly similar to Resolution – and with a very encouraging initial aircore assay of 9m at 2.1g/t Au. The dimensions of this ET are 1,500m of strike, 100m down dip, 5m width and 2.35g/cc density, placing the top end of the range at 1.76Mt and the lower at 880kt, with the grade estimate of 2-2.3g/t Au being based on both the AC assays and average grade at Resolution. One of the strongest conceptual exploration targets sits right near the historically producing Eaglehawk mine and is based on projected reef trends along with magnetic structure. AKA has just been drilling here and assays are pending.
We first initiated on AKA with the view that there is potential for the 2km gap between the 358koz Resolution lode and 40.3koz Adventure lode to contain a material level of mineralisation, with down dip extensions heading in the right direction to make a connection between the lodes possible. The latest high resolution magnetics have reaffirmed this potential, and AKA will be drilling this deeper prospect that could become a game-changing discovery.
Much of this increase in resource inventory is derived from 8 holes that drilled over 5,000m through the Resolution lode and hit some of the most impressive high-grade intercepts at the project so far, with numerous instances of visible gold – such as 10m at 12.1g/t Au from 413m including 0.3m at 183g/t Au from 413m and 0.3m at 64.3g/t Au from 413.8m. A key driver of the upgrade is also the learnings from drilling throughout 2025, which notably included the discovery of the high-grade Tenacity zone late last year.
AKA’s $13.15 million market cap and $3.7 million in cash equate to an enterprise value of $9.45 million, which is not reflective of the current resource or potential additions from the exploration target – and certainly not the near-term production potential from both St Arnaud and the Wedderburn mill and Irvine through Stawell. Our last article covered the high grade extensions that AKA have been hitting at its St Arnaud project, which has recently extended the mineralised area 100m to the north, 140m to the west and 125m vertically in a parallel structure at the project that has historically produced an incredible 400koz at 15g/t Au. With focus at the project currently being Walker’s Pit, we will build on the near-term production opportunity narrative once the infill assays have been released.
The cross section of Irvine below shows the Resolution and Adventure lodes, and highlights the 2km gap in the middle which is an extremely high priority target – along with two of the other exploration target areas:
Source: AKA
The cross section of the Resolution Zone below the standout assays from the deposit, including the new ones factored into the resource – along with the Exploration Target area which is up dip of zone mineralisation:
Source: AKA
A cross section of Stawell’s orezones can be seen below, with 1.5Moz being produced from a section with very similar geometry to Resolution, and at least 3 other mineralised areas with above 500koz potential based on extensions and structural targeting:
Source: Stawell Gold Mines
A plan view of the exploration targets at Irvine can be seen below, overlaid with RTP TMI geophysics:
Source: AKA
The newly acquired drone magnetics data with 50m spacing can be seen on the right, compared with the reprocessed legacy data that was coarser and less refined. The enhanced local-scale resolution allows for the identification of both contrasting magnetic responses and potential emerging second order structures, giving AKA a sharper framework to find the right settings that could contain mineralisation:
Source: AKA
The quality of the new survey is again visible in the before and after comparison of the TMI shape index magnetics (above) and the TMI RTP analytic signal filter (below), demonstrating a clear increase in contrasting magnetic responses and subtle variations that were not identified in the coarser legacy data:
Source: AKA
This current period for AKA will be characterised by a heavy flow of assay results from both Irvine and St Arnaud, as well as announcements pertaining to the near term production of the Walkers Pit – which will include a resource upgrade for this high grade previously producing prospect. With a highly refined exploration model and an established resource base, AKA has a very positive outlook over the next few months.
Subscribe here to receive all of our coverage
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.