The mineralisation sits on a mining licence with all relevant permits and an existing pit design in place making it essentially “shovel ready”.

Great Southern Mining managing director Matthew Keane said: “The proceeds of this placement put Great Southern Mining in a strong position to aggressively explore its highly prospective 100% owned Western Australian project portfolio. The company is entering 2025 well capitalised with exciting drilling programs planned at the Duketon gold project with the prospect of a maiden drilling program at the Edinburgh Park JV, under the management of the skilled Gold Fields’ team”.

Great Southern’s other major exploration focus centres on its Edinburgh Park copper project which sits 100km southeast of Townsville in Queensland, which the company shares in joint venture with the global top 10 gold miner and Great Southern shareholder, Gold Fields Ltd.

Gold Fields, which is spending $15 million on exploration across 6 years to earn the right to 75 per cent of the project, recently revealed a massive 2km-wide induced polarisation anomaly lurking at depth at the project.

According to Great Southern, the geophysical anomaly has the potential to host a large-scale intrusive related porphyry gold-copper and/or epithermal gold deposit, similar to the 3-million-ounce Mount Leyshon gold-silver mine about 120km to the west.

Surface mapping and geochemical sampling across the 4km by 1km anomaly has kicked up high concentrations of gold, silver, copper and particularly molybdenum, which is a typical marker of porphyry deposits and has reinforced the JV’s working theory.

Gold Fields is continuing to run geophysical surveys over the project to identify similar targets before drawing up a priority list for a 2025 drilling campaign.

With the saddlebags full of cash, Great Southern is gearing up for a busy year of WA gold exploration and high hopes of making a meaningful discovery.

If its joint venture partner, Gold Fields Ltd was to also come up trumps with a new copper-gold porphyry discovery on its shared Queensland grounds then Great Southern could well be on its way to becoming a substantial future producer of the yellow metal.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: mattbirney@bullsnbears.com.au