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Murray Ward
Critical Resources has engaged a firm of exploration specialists with extensive on-the-ground experience to kick off a hunt for the structural keys to its gold projects in Suriname, South America.
The company recently secured exclusivity over the Gonini and Greenstars projects in September, which sit in the Guiana Shield – a vast, ancient geological region in northern South America, stretching across Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana and parts of Venezuela and Brazil. Its old greenstone belts host major gold deposits and are geologically related to West Africa’s prolific Birimian gold belts, which were joined to the Guiana Shield before the Atlantic Ocean opened.
Subject to the deals completing, the ASX-listed junior will hold a 90 per cent interest in 199 square kilometres of granted gold exploitation rights.
Critical has now brought in experts GexplOre to run a major structural and geophysical interpretation across Gonini and Greenstars, in addition to more than 6000 square kilometres of the surrounding greenstone belt. The savvy move marks a significant step for Critical, which says it is the first ASX-listed company in decades to explore for gold in the country.
‘Engaging them now means we can build our structural picture and help us screen further opportunities across the belt.’
Critical Resources managing director Tim Wither
GexplOre is no stranger to the Guiana Shield, having worked on about 20 gold projects across Suriname, Guyana and French Guiana. Notably, the firm has provided structural work for G Mining Ventures’ impressive Oko West project in Guyana and Founders Metals’ Antino project in Suriname, a project that has seen Canadian major Gold Fields tip in C$77 (A$77.7) million for a 19.9 per cent stake.
Critical’s study will be a two-stage affair. The first stage involves a detailed, property-scale interpretation over two priority target areas at the 164-square-kilometre Gonini project. The second is a lower-resolution review of the wider greenstone belt, designed to screen for further opportunities.
The work will process satellite elevation and spectral data, tapping into Gexplore’s existing database, to map host rocks, shear and fault corridors, and folding events that are known to control gold mineralisation in the region.
In a deeply weathered and forest-covered terrain where rock outcrop is scarce, a satellite-based structural study is a logical and low-cost first filter to identify settings that might host gold before committing to more expensive on-ground work.
The wider Guiana Shield is considered hot property for gold exploration, with recent coverage highlighting it as significantly underexplored while attracting fresh capital. The region’s gold sector is already a major economic driver for Suriname, with the United States Geological Survey noting gold production delivered US$2 billion (A$2.9B) in export revenue in 2024 and accounted for 79 per cent of the country’s total exports.
Critical Resources managing director Tim Wither said: “The Gonini and Greenstars projects give ASX investors a rare opportunity for exposure to the Guiana Shield greenstone belt in Suriname, and give us the opportunity to continue to grow our footprint within Suriname and the greater Guiana Shield. Gexplore brings structural experience from some of the most significant discoveries in the Shield, including G Mining Ventures’ Oko West in Guyana and Founders Metals’ Antino in Suriname.”
The company’s ground sits within the same Marowijne greenstone belt that hosts Newmont’s 5.1-million-ounce Merian mine, 66km away and Zijin Mining’s Rosebel mine, some 88km away. Rosebel has been in production since 2004, producing 5.65 million ounces of gold between 2004 and 2021 before Zijin acquired it from IAMGOLD for US$360 (A$518) million in 2023.
While both of Critical’s projects have a long history of small-scale mining, there is little to no record of modern systematic exploration. Legal, title and technical due diligence on both projects is being fast-tracked, with site visits and in-country introductions slated for the coming weeks, allowing the company to quickly start exploration once the acquisition conditions are satisfied.
Elsewhere, the company continues to roll out its Mavis Lake lithium project in Canada, home to an eight-million- tonne resource at 1.07 per cent lithium oxide. It also holds an option over intellectual property for solid-state battery technology and has licensed thermal management tech targeting AI high-density electronics data centres.
Additionally, Critical holds the Halls Peak base metals project in New South Wales featuring an inferred resource of 840,000 tonnes at 3.7 per cent zinc, 1.5 per cent lead and 0.44 per cent copper alongside a growing portfolio of gold, antimony and tungsten prospects across a 1694-square-kilometre ground package in New Zealand.
With legal and technical due diligence on the acquisitions ongoing, the structural study will serve to give Critical a running start. By building a structural framework now, the company hopes a first boot-on-ground campaign can head straight to the highest-ranked ground once the deals are finalised, allowing exploration to kick off at full tilt.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: mattbirney@bullsnbears.com.au
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