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Penny Taylor
Broken Hill Gold has emerged from its recent rebranding from PacGold, with its sights firmly fixed on White Dam. The company has blown open a much bigger exploration front at its 100 per cent-owned project, 80km east of Broken Hill in South Australia, with the Icebreaker discovery pointing to resource growth and triggering a hunt for deeper gold-copper riches across a swag bag of near-mine targets.
Icebreaker, previously the White Dam North prospect, has revealed what could be a significant mineralised system sitting beneath White Damโs shallow oxide gold. Drilling hit 20m grading 2.5 grams per tonne (g/t) gold and 0.5 per cent copper from 58m, including 6m at 7.5g/t gold and 1.2 per cent copper. Another hole returned 10m at 3.4g/t gold and 0.7 per cent copper from 54m. The discovery lies within a magnetic anomaly that extends up to 1km and remains open in all directions.
Hannaford and Vertigo produced 200,000 and 100,000 ounces respectively. However, one of the few deep holes beneath Hannaford hit 29m at 0.7g/t gold from 315m and remains open along strike and down dip. The Vertigo Fault between the pits remains untested at depth.
Elsewhere, old workings are throwing up plenty of smoke. Mary Mine returned 16m at 0.9g/t gold and 2.2 per cent copper, Green and Gold Mine delivered 36m at 1.0g/t gold and 0.3 per cent copper and the Wilkins prospect hit 9m at 0.9g/t gold and 0.5 per cent copper. Surface samples peaked at 13 per cent copper at Mary.
โWith our large ground position, we have multiple areas and new targets to start expanding our exploration programmes.โ
Broken Hill Gold managing director Matthew Boyes
The Rolling prospect, 800m north of Hannaford and on the same magnetic feature as Icebreaker, returned 4m at 2.7g/t gold from 34m, including 1m at 8.0g/t. Hannaford North, White Dam East, Hannaford Northeast and Vertigo West add to the near-mine pipeline.
The Wadnaminga prospect, 80km southwest, adds a 700m undeveloped lode around old workings that produced 19,962 ounces at 37.88g/t gold.
Together, a review of historical exploration data has put more than 50 prospects in the frame, several of which share characteristics with Icebreaker, Vertigo and Hannaford and are generally untested below 80m.
Icebreaker has turned the White Dam exploration thesis on its head. Its sulphide-hosted gold-copper discovery points towards iron-oxide-copper-gold (IOCG) mineralisation, a deposit family capable of forming very large orebodies.
White Dam sits within the underexplored Curnamona Province of eastern South Australia, where oxide gold caps can overlie primary gold-copper sulphides linked to structural feeder zones. Classified as an iron-poor IOCG end member, its deeper copper-gold potential has never been systematically tested, with previous explorers overwhelmingly focused on shallow oxide gold for heap leaching.
Broken Hill Gold managing director Matthew Boyes said: โThe Curnamona province is becoming some of the most prized exploration ground in Australia with major companies now focusing on acquiring and exploring in the region primarily for IOCG and large metasediment-hosted copper-gold systems.โ
The company is now backing that conviction with more than 30,000m of drilling over 18 months, alongside electrical and magnetic geophysics and geochemistry. Near-mine drilling applications are in, regional heritage clearances are scheduled and a large slice of its recent capital raising will fund the regional push and data reprocessing.
Drilling at Icebreaker is now moving towards an updated and upgraded oxide resource in the fourth quarter, with Vertigo North Extended and Hannaford also planned for August-September. Open-pit optimisation and mine planning will follow.
Those resource upgrades and mine plans form one half of Broken Hill Goldโs two-pronged strategy. White Dam already hosts 4.6 million tonnes at 0.7g/t gold for 102,000 ounces, backed by existing pits, heap-leach infrastructure and an operational gold extraction plant.
Acquired in late 2025, the operation has already produced dorรฉ from historical heap material, with fresh open-pit ore the next prize and smaller oxide discoveries offering potential satellite feed. The plan is to use that production platform to generate cash and help bankroll the bigger exploration hunt.
The prize at depth could be considerably bigger. Just 40km north, Havilah Resourcesโ Kalkaroo hosts 1.1 million tonnes of copper and 3.1 million ounces of gold, while North Portia and Mutooroo provide further evidence of sizeable copper-gold systems across the Curnamona.
Following its North Queensland demerger, the Icebreaker discovery is a game-changer for Broken Hill Gold at its flagship project and across its wider Curnamona ground. With open-pit mining offering cashflow while it chases the gold-copper elephants earlier explorers barely tested, the company has a clear run at writing a whole new chapter for the old White Dam mine.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: mattbirney@bullsnbears.com.au
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