Terrain sells Wildviper gold project to Northern Star

Terrain Minerals will pocket a cool $300,000 to fund its multi-mineral  exploration focus after selling off its 100 per cent-owned Wildviper gold project in Western Australia’s Goldfields region to next door neighbour Northern Star.

The company has entered into a binding sale and purchase agreement with the major miner, which has an enormous $17.35 billion market cap, to divest the project’s exploration license that sits close to Northern Star’s Bundarra gold deposit.

Wildviper is 70km north of Leonora in WA’s fertile Eastern Goldfields and takes in more than 25 square kilometres of the historic Weebo goldfield. Previous rock chip samples at the site returned assays 9.92 grams per tonne and 4.67g/t gold.

Management says it plans to use the funding for its existing exploration endeavours.

Terrain Minerals executive director Justin Virgin said: “We are very pleased with the being able to unlock value and $300k of cash. Wildviper was the last part of the Great Western gold mine package, sold to Red5 Ltd in 2020, which realised around $3m for the company! The goal is ultimately to make loyal shareholders money and this is exactly what this cash injection will be directed at.”

The company says the Wildviper sale was the result of an internal strategic initiative, which is focusing exploration expenditure on opportunities that have the potential for large, company-making-style deposits, in addition to securing significant strategic parcels of land in a bid to target future-facing commodities.

Part of the latest financial boost could be used to replace funds for a recently-launched helicopter-borne electromagnetic survey at its Lort River project near Esperance to test a distinctive “eye” magnetic feature.

Management says the feature bears stark similarities to IGO’s renowned Nova-Bollinger nickel-copper deposit in WA’s prospective Albany-Fraser belt. Importantly, the 640sq-km Lort River operation sits along the interpreted strike of the Nova nickel-copper mine.

Lort River sits just 50km north of Esperance in the southern regions of the Albany-Fraser orogenic belt – home to an expanding list of precious and critical metals including the five million-ounce Tropicana Gold project that is owned by AngloGold Ashanti’s joint venture (JV) with Regis Resources and IGO’s zinc-copper volcanic-hosted massive sulphide (VMS) discovery at Andromeda.

Sirius Resources targeted a similar eye structure back in 2012 at Nova and some eight months later, went on to test another anomaly known as Bollinger. In a matter of months, Sirius’ share price catapulted from 5c to $5 before it was taken over by IGO.

Terrain is also working on what it believes could be a significant rare earths discovery at its Larin’s Lane project in WA’s Mid West region. Management says the first results from its drilling at the project last December include gallium oxide grades of up to 57g/t.

Gallium is an emerging mineral that is used to produce mirrors, liquid thermometers and LEDs for devices including smartphones and calculators.

The company has also recorded gold hits of up to 6.22g/t from drilling at its 100 per cent-owned Smokebush project next to Larin’s Lane at Yalgoo, some 350km north of Perth.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au