Pacgold has hit paydirt at its White Dam North project in South Australia, with drilling beneath a known shallow oxide resource intersecting a significant high-grade gold and copper sulphide zone. Results include a 20-metre intercept grading 2.5 grams per tonne gold and 0.5 per cent copper from 58m, with a spectacular 3-metre core running 12.5g/t gold and 1.8 per cent copper.
Pacgold Limited soared almost 50 per cent to as high as 16 cents in early trading after revealing it had punched through a substantial high-grade copper-gold discovery at its White Dam North gold project in South Australia.
The company’s latest copper riches had previously lain dormant beneath previously drilled shallow oxide gold mineralisation at the project, hinting at a potentially project-wide copper and gold prize emerging at the gold-producing play.
Pacgold unveiled a plethora of solid copper-gold hits, including a 20-metre hit grading 2.5 grams per tonne (g/t) gold and 0.5 per cent copper from just 58m, featuring a stunning higher-grade core of 6m at 7.5g/t gold and 1.2 per cent copper.
Another hole delivered a 10-metre intercept grading 3.4g/t gold and 0.7 per cent copper from 54m, including a 5-metre section at a solid 5.0g/t gold and one per cent copper.
The discovery looks to be a major step forward for the company, confirming a high-grade copper sulphide system lurking beneath what it previously thought was an oxide gold-only mineralised system – the focus of all the historical work at site.
Pacgold says the new discovery is coincident with a magnetic anomaly that extends for up to one kilometre in strike, leaving plenty of meat on the bone for further exploration.
Importantly, the company says its discovery remains open in all directions, with a host of assays from the same program still pending from holes that have returned wide zones of visible sulphides.
Pacgold says massive chunks of up to 59m of sulphide mineralisation have been observed in a further five holes from the program, with assays for the visual copper hits yet to be returned.
With only limited deep drilling ever carried out at the project, the discovery of a primary sulphide system at depth opens up a whole new exploration front for the company.
Management says multiple other untested magnetic anomalies with similar structural settings exist at its nearby Rolling, White Dam East and Hannaford West prospects.
Pacgold managing director Matthew Boyes said: “The Curnamona Province is now becoming a very high priority copper-gold exploration address with multiple high-quality copper-gold discoveries in what is to date still a very underexplored district.”
Pacgold’s White Dam project lies just 80km west of the famed Broken Hill mine within the burgeoning Curnamona Province, which straddles the South Australia-New South Wales border.
While the province is famous for hosting BHP’s giant namesake lead-zinc-silver deposit, it is increasingly being recognised as an emerging copper-gold region with strong similarities to the Gawler Craton, home to Olympic Dam.
The area has seen a flurry of recent activity, highlighted by Sandfire Resources’ major farm-in deal with Havilah Resources to earn up to 80 per cent of the nearby Kalkaroo copper-gold project in a transaction valued at up to $240 million.
The company made its latest discovery while focusing on infill drilling across the project’s existing 102,000-ounce oxide gold resource, which it acquired in late 2025. However, this latest find of a primary sulphide system seems likely to significantly expand the project's potential.
With the rods still turning, a geophysical survey planned and a conga line of assays from visually impressive drill holes on their way to the lab, Pacgold has plenty of news in the pipeline.
What started as an exercise to firm up a known gold money churner has quickly unearthed what looks to be a jackpot. As copper prices surge to all-time highs, a copper-gold discovery in Australia’s premier copper-producing region looks like a much bigger prize with significant blue sky.
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