Warriedar Resources’ (ASX: WA8) key focus is expanding gold resources at its Golden Range gold project in Western Australia.

Warriedar acquired the Golden Range project in 2023, which came with an established gold resource of over 815,000 ounces of gold, spread along a dominant central shear corridor that has since been named ‘the Golden Corridor’.

That moniker seems well-placed with the 25-kilometre‑long strip hosting six deposits and 18 historical pits, all within permitted mining leases, offering what Warriedar considers a potential accelerated and low‑capital-intensity pathway to future gold production, based upon further exploration success.

Warriedar’s stated objective at Golden Range is the targeting and delineation of primary gold deposits.

Historical drilling by previous owners focused on shallow oxide gold in proximity to the existing 800,000-tonnes-per-annum processing plant and associated infrastructure that was placed on care and maintenance during 2019.

‘The focus of drilling in 2023 was working out where we needed to be, conducting further drilling, as well as building the right team and developing a full understanding of the opportunity we had before us,’ Warriedar Resources Managing Director Amanda Buckingham told Future Mining.

‘This year, our drilling has targeted the section of the project where that earlier work determined we should be focused. 

‘We have called this area “the Golden Corridor”, as it is basically where most of our gold resources are currently situated. It’s an area we considered to hold great potential to get some early runs on the board by adding some new, high-quality gold to the existing resources.’

Warriedar’s concept is simple: drill below and around the old, shallow pits that have never been subjected to deeper drilling, in the pursuit of deeper, fresh rock opportunities.

It’s a concept used successfully by neighbour Ramelius Resources in its early days, and one that is paying dividend at the project’s Ricciardo deposit, the largest of the six in the Golden Corridor.

Recent assays from Ricciardo confirmed a wide mineralisation zone 180 metres down-dip of the current resource.

Gold intervals included RDRC049DD, which was 7.2 metres at 4.51 grams per tonne of gold from 232.8 metres, including three metres at 9.03 grams per tonne of gold from 234 metres. It was also 23.2 metres at 1.6 grams per tonne of gold from 270.8 metres.

‘Our latest drilling allowed reporting of highly encouraging results, demonstrating that our drilling is delivering proof of concept,’ Buckingham says.

Other results from the program delivered excellent extensions and infill at Ricciardo:

• RDRC019DD: 32 metres at 3.59 grams per tonne of gold from 148 metres
• RDRC041DD: eight metres at 11.4 grams per tonne of gold from 166 metres
• RDRC039DD: 19 metres at 4.94 grams per tonne of gold from 188 metres
• RDRC040DD: 12 metres at 6.98 grams per tonne of gold from 110 metres.

‘Our next step is a resource upgrade, after which we will be drilling again in order to estimate further upgrades, and hopefully demonstrate what we believe: that there is a lot more gold to be found here,’ Buckingham says.