Saturn Metals has launched a major exploration campaign in Western Australia’s Leonora district, aiming to establish a second gold centre just 30km from its flagship Apollo Hill development.
The company has commenced an initial 10,000m reverse circulation (RC) drilling program along the 26.5km Aquarius Gold Trend, targeting extensions to historical gold mineralisation and potential new discoveries.
Earlier drilling by Sumitomo Metal Mining Oceania returned broad gold intersections including 36m at 1.25 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from 102m and 33m at 1.27g/t gold from 78m.
Saturn managing director Ian Bamborough said the historical results highlighted the potential for further discoveries.
“Aquarius has all the hallmarks of a significant gold camp, with widely spaced, broad and higher-grade historical drill intersections defining a mineralised trend that extends over 26.5km,” he said.
The drilling program will initially focus on extending known mineralisation along strike and down-plunge, while investigating the continuity and scale of the broader gold system.
According to Saturn, historical drilling across the trend remains widely spaced, with limited deeper RC and diamond drilling leaving significant areas untested.
Apollo Hill, Saturn’s flagship development, hosts a mineral resource of 2.83 million ounces of gold and remains the company’s principal development priority.
Drilling at Aquarius is expected to continue into the first quarter of 2027, with further updates anticipated as assay results are received and interpreted.
Bamborough said the company saw opportunities to build on Apollo Hill through discoveries across its broader tenement package.
“While Apollo Hill remains our flagship development priority, we see enormous potential to build on that foundation through exploration success across our broader tenement package,” he said.
“The opportunity to establish a second gold centre at Aquarius, just 30km from Apollo Hill, is particularly exciting and could provide an important new avenue to expand our production profile beyond the already material, long-life operation we are establishing at Apollo Hill.”