Arika Resources flags 10 new Kookynie gold targets

Arika Resources identifies 10 new promising gold targets to drill at its underexplored Kookynie project in WA.

The company plans to drill test the new targets during Q2/3 2025. Pic: Getty Images.

• Arika Resources flags 10 new gold targets at Kookynie project in WA

• Targets could be extensions to known regional gold deposits or new discoveries

• Company plans to drill once approvals are secured

 

Special Report: Arika Resources latest soil geochemistry survey has identified 10 new gold targets at Ithaca prospect within its Kookynie project in WA.

Like the company’s Yundamindra project, Kookynie has gold endowment, with historical drilling at Ithaca returning up to 13m at 1.23g/t gold from 32m, including 1m at 13g/t from 40m.

However, there has been minimal modern exploration over the ~110km2 of tenure – something Arika Resources (ASX:ARI) plans to change.

The company has now flagged 10 new targets at Ithaca, immediately adjacent to Genesis Minerals’ (ASX:GMD) 7.9Mt at 3.4g/t Ulysses gold operations.

Two of the highest priority targets - IGTA 3 and IGTA 5 - are directly along strike from the Orient Well, Orient Well East and Blevins Find-Grafters gold-hosting structures, which Arika says significantly enhances the structural targets.

Target IGTA 3 covers ~800m x 150m and includes a peak gold-in-soil result of 78ppb, while Target IGTA 5 covers ~2km x 1km.

These will be tested in upcoming drilling, with the company confident there’s potential to rapidly build Kookynie by discovering extensions to known deposits and making new high-grade discoveries.

Watch: Arika’s $5M raise to bankroll gold drilling

Underexplored and full of growth potential

Arika plans to drill test these priority targets once all regulatory approvals, including heritage surveys and POWs, have been received.

Managing director Justin Barton said the results were extremely exciting.

“Ithaca sits right alongside Genesis’s Ulysses gold project which now boasts more than 2Moz of gold,” he said.

“The work has highlighted a number of strong anomalies that are coincident with what our team have interpreted as structural extensions to the Ulysses-Orient Well gold hosting structures and these targets remain under-explored.

“The more work we do at Kookynie, the more evidence we uncover of just how richly endowed the project is.

“For example, our Kookynie tenements host the historical Cosmopolitan mine, which was one of WA’s richest and most profitable gold mines in its day, and yet no one has had a serious look at it from an exploration perspective.”

The Cosmopolitan mines produced 331,000 ounces at 15g/t Au up to 1922 and has had little or no systematic drilling at depth or along strike.

“Like Yundamindra, Kookynie is one of the few major historical gold mining centres in the NE Goldfields that doesn’t currently have a modern operating mine on it – and we’re determined to change that,” Barton said.

“We are taking a methodical, systematic approach to this new phase of exploration at Kookynie, with every stage designed to refine our final targets ahead of drill testing in order to give ourselves the best chance of early success.”

Barton added that these surveys provided Arika with a cost-effective first-pass method of assessing large areas of the project which had remained largely unexplored due to a lack of outcrop.

“Recent exploration success by our neighbour Carnavale Resources (ASX:CAV) has confirmed the prospectivity of the region, particularly in areas where the bedrock sequences of interest are under cover,” he said.

The company plans to recommence drilling at the Yundamindra gold project early next month, with the multi-purpose rig to move between Yundamindra and Kookynie over the coming months as target areas become drill-ready and accessible.

This article was developed in collaboration with Arika Resources, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.