Record gold prices, overlooked acreage & a looming maiden JORC. How this stock could become a household name

Record gold prices, overlooked acreage & a looming maiden JORC. How this stock could become a household name

Jonathon Davidson

The Market Online, Australia

It doesn’t take a market savant to recognise the opportunities posed right now by record high gold prices.

As the gold metal has cooled from the ~US$3,500/oz mark in recent weeks, the commodity’s performance through CY2024, and year to date (YTD), is to become the stuff of historical chart legend.

With that in mind, gold producers across the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) have soared, with few exceptions.

Now, investors are looking for companies that could become the next big thing. That means explorers are, as ever, hot right now. Market watchers have increasingly turned their eyes towards gold explorers (and high copper prices are fuelling interest in explorers for the orange metal.)

By and large, Gorilla Gold Mines – formerly Labyrinth Resources – stands as the best current example, with 1Y gains on Tuesday 6 May up a whopping +1,073%.

But Gorilla Gold Mines is far from the only beast in the jungle.

The same is true for commodities. Copper and silver have also, like gold explorers and producers, seen some pretty dramatic price action in the last twelve months.

What makes a good gold play?

When it comes to explorers, there are certain things that get investors more excited than others.

Being in a proven gold mining province can only be a plus for attracting attention; unexplored or underexplored landholdings are also typically a plus.

While gold grades in drilling results are king, there are other factors too: proximity to shear zones, which can be simply described as geological targets more likely to contain mineral deposits. Proximity to nearby successful projects always get imaginations fired up, and, aggressive drilling programs with prominent newsflows also typically catch eyes.

So what companies have all of those things put together?

Typical for the great Australian mining-heavy bourse, there’s often more than one to choose from. But some stand out more than others.

Enter Australian Gold and Copper Ltd

Specifically, Australian Gold and Copper Limited (ASX:AGC) is one of those companies.

Its Cargelligo project is along strike from the Cobar Mining District in NSW’s southern Cobar Basin – a bonafide mining province, also part of NSW’s famous Lachlan Fold Belt (LFB).

AGC’s management and geotech team have recently focused their attention on the flagship target of interest, the Achilles deposit. And the intensity of that focus has been profound. Dominant silver mineralisation currently understood; plenty of opportunity for gold and even the potential presence of a copper system stand out as key factors of interest. Silver prices are currently up +14% YoY; copper is up 14.3% YTD per TradingEconomics.

In fact, AGC intends to spend the rest of the year on-site drilling – and it can do this without needing to raise capital. The company, at the time of writing, has $15.7M in cash to fund its own exploration activities.

Probing the Achilles Deposit

So far, the company has launched a ~10,000m AirCore (AC) drill run over the acreage, with less than a third of assay results posted to market as of Tuesday 6 May 2025. The results from some 200 drill holes remain at the lab, with further company announcements pending as that data trickles in.

Already ahead of the curve, AGC has a Reverse Circulation (RC) drill run planned to occur thereafter. The company, sitting on an underexplored region of the LFB, has so far probed to depths maxxing out at 250m – with an RC rig, geotechs hope to probe deeper.

With near surface potential already demonstrated on-site in the first batch of assays, AGC is hoping to replicate successes clocked by geotechs at the nearby Hera gold mine (run by Aurelius Metals).

While gold is the current focus point for the company – worth noting is that Achilles is a gold and silver target – geotechs have also had some early luck sniffing around copper targets on-site, too.

But as it currently stands, what geotechs currently have better scope of is the silver mineralisation at Achilles, with that sister metal to gold being the dominant commodity opportunity. But with gold coming up in AC results; 200 more assays to be analysed, and, a targeted maiden Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) for this calendar year, gold is equally the name of the game.

And then there’s the fact the company is sitting on what for other companies in the area has proven to be prime real estate.

Lachlan Fold Belt and nearology

And with a view to the Cobar region, overlying the Lachlan Fold Belt, Australian Gold & Copper Managing Director Glen Diemar is bullish on nearology considerations.

“We know the Achilles deposit is open at depth along strike in every direction, so, we just need to keep drilling Achilles while we’re processing through the air core holes,” Diemar told HotCopper.

“There’s a lot of scope for this. We’ve only drilled to 250 meters depth at Achilles, and if you think about it, the [nearby] Hera mine that Aurelia Metals grew, that [resource] only started at 280 metres down.

And it’s not just a gold neighbourhood. It’s also true AGC sits nearby world-class copper acreage, too.

“[As for copper, the] CSA mine in the same belt as us, which is the third highest grade copper mine in the world, they’re mining almost at 2 kilometres depth,” Diemar observed.

AGC straddling high potential

“So these deposits can develop into very large systems and have big tails underneath, so we’re really just clipping the fingernails off the top of the iceberg at the moment.”

It’s only fair to point out, too, AGC’s foray into copper is in its early stages. Right now, geotechs aren’t calling that a “discovery” – but it’s of interest for obvious reasons.

With the electrification metal also experiencing strong upside on commodities markets, the company stands poised to benefit from the intersection of those two dynamics. To date, copper found at Cargelligo coincides with bismuth and stands as a further point of interest for the otherwise gold hungry explorer.

AGC last traded at 15cps.

Jonathon Davidson

The Market Online, Australia

https://media.hotcopper.com.au/authors/V1-Jonathon.jpg

jonathon-davidson/988

Laeyl1BV

https://media.hotcopper.com.au/embed/ba8h4mfwgknndbf0ctmh4pdbfw/1/large