Warriedar Resources (ASX:WA8) is an Australia-based brownfield gold and base metals exploration company with two large-scale, highly prospective projects, Golden Range and Fields Find, located in the Murchison region of Western Australia.

The Golden Range and Fields Find projects are within a historic gold producing region located approximately 350km northeast of Perth and 260km from Geraldton. Golden Range possesses a current JORC-compliant mineral resource of 19.2Mt at 1.5 g/t Au for 945,000oz of contained gold.

Hitting the ground running

Since the acquisition of the projects in February 2023, Warriedar has undertaken significant drilling across both Golden Range and Fields Find. To date, over 23,000m of reverse-circulation (RC) drilling has been completed at Golden Range, which has delivered growth at five separate gold deposits. In parallel, the company has rapidly pursued drilling of key gold and copper targets at Fields Find, with close to 16,000m RC completed there.

Notably, the drilling at Golden Range has demonstrated the excellent resource growth potential across what is known as the ‘Golden Corridor', a 25km long area below and between historic open pits in an area which hosts six discrete gold deposits which are all open at depth.

The Golden Corridor is the key focus of Warriedar's 2024 exploration drilling program, which began in February 2024.

Large untapped regional growth potential

Golden Range covers a 70km long section of a belt-scale mineralised shear that has remained relatively underexplored with only shallow, irregular drilling being undertaken historically. This offers Warriedar a substantial upside opportunity with the addition of future discoveries, particularly at depth.

"The significant scale of the growth potential at our Murchison assets requires a sharp focus and has prompted us to allocate maximum available resources to its exploration," Warriedar managing director, Amanda Buckingham, said. This focus has prompted Warriedar to concurrently pursue strategic investment and farm-out opportunities for its other key asset, the Big Springs Gold Project located in Nevada, US.

The Murchison remains a highly prospective gold exploration region buoyed by historical and ongoing success across a range of project proponents and operators in the area. Approximately 60km to the south of Golden Range and Fields Find is Capricorn Metals' Mount Gibson gold project. Buckingham noted that "Mount Gibson is considered by many to be a regional benchmark, and an encouraging pro-forma model for Warriedar, being two years ahead of us in terms of exploration drilling".

Warriedar's assets are also situated close to other major exploration activity centres, including Silverlake Resources' Rothsay & Deflector projects and Ramelius Resources' Mt Magnet project.

"In a broader sense, our commitment to the area is validated by the ongoing activities of other industry leaders operating nearby, who continue to demonstrate the suite of upside opportunities within the Murchison", Buckingham said.

A direct approach to exploration

Warriedar's modus operandi has been directly spearheaded by Buckingham, who operates with a simple but effective data driven approach: use the right data in the right way to narrow the search space and drill in the right spot. The Warriedar team is site based, and Buckingham is highly active in the field year-round, where she can not only stay close to the action but also work interactively and in real-time with her highly experienced team.

"Fostering effective communication across our broader team has been crucial to our exploration strategy over the past year. Working closely with the technical team and ensuring they have what they need is instrumental to long-term success. It has allowed us to produce some strong results within a comparatively short period of time," noted Buckingham.

As a geophysicist with over 30 years' experience in mineral exploration, Buckingham has a strong grasp of what ingredients are required to produce success and has a keen sense, based on the data, of what a winner looks like.

"Exploration is rarely easy. While the outcomes are never certain, I am pleased that our efforts to expand our knowledge of the geology in and around the existing Golden Range resources has produced significant extensional discoveries of high-grade gold between and below the existing, shallow open pits," she stated.

Moving forward, Buckingham is focused on ensuring that Warriedar retains significant flexibility from a structural and operational perspective. "A lot goes on out in the field, so it is important that we keep ourselves nimble, and as an organisation, streamlined and ready for any contingency," she added.

Following the successful completion of a A$6 million placement in the March 2024 quarter, Warriedar has a robust cash position ahead of further planned resource growth drilling in 2024.

Clear pathway to further success

Warriedar has adopted a dual-focus strategy for the remainder of its 2024 drilling activities.

The company's primary focus is further resource growth at Ricciardo and along the Golden Corridor. Ricciardo is the largest of the six deposits located within the Golden Corridor. It possesses a current Mineral Resource estimate of 8.7Mt at 1.7 g/t Au for 476,000oz of gold and remains highly prospective, with outstanding extensional gold intercepts returned from outside of existing resource boundaries during 2023/24 drilling.

Warriedar is also focused on making new discoveries along the underexplored 70km shear, which extends north and south either side of the 25km long Golden Corridor.

"A key objective of our 2024 strategy is to continue expanding our portfolio with new discoveries of high-grade ounces along the main shear to complement our existing high-quality resources", Buckingham stated.

While Buckingham acknowledges widespread investor reticence when it comes to backing junior gold explorers in recent years, she stated a belief that Warriedar possesses deep-rooted advantages to distinguish it.

"With the discovery of high-grade gold shoots greater than 5g/t, which remain open at depth and along strike, there is plenty to be excited about across Golden Range and our broader Murchison tenure," Buckingham said.

"While it does take time to explore a belt of this size, I believe our results to date speak for themselves. As we endeavour to rapidly grow and upgrade our existing gold resources at Golden Range, we look forward to this translating to long-term value growth and superior returns for our shareholders."