Brought to you by BULLS N’ BEARS
Penny Taylor
Fresh from reshaping the balance sheet through a sale of its Youanmi royalty for a hefty $46 million in cash, Venus Metals Corporation is turning renewed attention to one of its longest-held Western Australian gold assets.
Years of patient exploration through successive rock-chip, soil and auger programs have now evolved into a pipeline of increasingly drill-ready targets across its Henderson project in Western Australia’s Eastern Goldfields.
A 466-sample auger soil program, completed across the Snake Hill, Blue Well South and 18 Mile Well prospects within Henderson, has defined a 1600m by 450m gold anomaly at Snake Hill, with peak soil values reaching 88 parts per billion (pbb) gold. The program has been designed to hunt out concealed drill targets beneath transported cover ahead of drilling.
Henderson has been part of the Venus portfolio for several years. The 202-square-kilometre project spans 25km of the prospective Mt Ida/Ularring Greenstone Belt. Successive exploration has refined targets along the Ida and Ballard faults towards neighbouring gold deposits, including First Hit, Riverina, Mt Ida and Baldock.
‘We maintain our commitment to pursuing opportunities which recognise the underlying value of Venus’ unique portfolio of assets and their future potential.’
Venus Metals Corporation managing director Matthew Hogan
Historical soil sampling by mining major IGO Limited at Snake Hill had already produced a 500ppb gold lag anomaly, rock chips grading up to 5.1 grams per tonne (g/t) gold and soil results of up to 70ppb gold. The latest work has stitched those geological clues into a much larger gold anomaly.
The geos have homed in on a bend in the Ida Fault where a possible felsic intrusion and a northwest-trending gabbro converge, creating a prime setting for structurally controlled gold mineralisation.
Wider-spaced sampling across 124 data points in areas where thick vegetation limits access south of Blue Well has also confirmed gold enrichment adjacent to the Mount Ida Fault.
Additionally, sampling has detected subtle anomalies along the Ballard Fault, west of the underexplored Henderson Bore prospect.
The work also outlined a separate 1200m by 350m northeast-trending cobalt-copper-nickel anomaly northwest of the historical Currans Mining Centre within the Youanmi district.
At another lease, the augur drill traced copper anomalism across 14km of the Youanmi Igneous Complex. Sampling returned values of up to 722 parts per million copper, defining multiple targets for follow-up exploration and drilling.
In total, exploration has now been run across five Youanmi tenements, including 379 auger soil samples, 740 surface soil samples and 13 rock-chip samples. Venus says it will shortly fly high-resolution drone magnetics to refine structurally controlled targets before drilling.
Venus Metals Corporation managing director Matthew Hogan said: “The Royalty Sale and the Venus Board’s intention to declare the Special Dividends reflect Venus’ ongoing focus on maximising value for all shareholders. We maintain our commitment to pursuing opportunities which recognise the underlying value of Venus’ unique portfolio of assets and their future potential.”
The company’s broader exploration strategy has been taking shape since it monetised its Youanmi royalty. While its 30,000-ounce Bellchambers project near Sandstone has become the most advanced gold development opportunity and is undergoing a prefeasibility study, Henderson has quietly matured into the next significant exploration opportunity. Today’s results demonstrate that strategy in action.
Elsewhere, Venus has several other irons in the fire across the broader Youanmi district, including the company’s Youanmi base-metals project, which sits 15km southwest of Rox Resources’ 2.17-million-ounce Youanmi gold project near Mt Magnet. There, the spotlight has been turned on a potentially big zinc–indium exploration target at its Pincher Well prospect.
The newly defined target sits within the Pincher Dome volcanic massive sulphide (VMS) trend – a more than 5-kilometre-long corridor peppered with known zinc and copper occurrences, gossans and past drill hits.
Management says its consultants have blended historic and recent drilling into a JORC-compliant exploration target that points to serious scale in a system that has barely been scratched in modern times.
Just 12km further to the south, Venus also retains a giant titanium-vanadium-iron project at Youanmi, where it is looking to unlock more value from its sizeable critical minerals inventory.
The company has teamed up with Murdoch University’s flagship Extractive Metallurgy Hub to develop an economically viable process capable of recovering titanium, vanadium and iron from the ore. The resource weighs in at a hefty 135 million tonnes grading 0.34 per cent vanadium pentoxide, 6.27 per cent titanium dioxide and 21.33 per cent iron.
Venus has also recently streamlined its portfolio by selling the Copper Hills tenement for $75,000 plus GST while retaining a 1 per cent net smelter royalty, reducing holding costs while preserving future upside.
With Henderson emerging as the next growth pillar, Venus has no shortage of value drivers. The company retains 55 million Rox Resources shares worth about $21 million, owns the Bellchambers gold deposit, is advancing multiple base metals targets at Youanmi and is working to unlock its giant 135-million-tonne titanium-vanadium-iron resource.
However, the next drill campaign may reveal whether years of patient exploration are ready to translate into the company’s next meaningful gold growth story.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: mattbirney@bullsnbears.com.au
