Haranga Resources is preparing to begin a 16-hole underground drilling campaign at its Lincoln Gold Project, targeting the southern resource and an under-drilled gap between the Lincoln and Comet zones. The programme arrives alongside new underground power infrastructure, completed dewatering and several assays that could shape a later resource update.
- 1,500m Phase 2 underground diamond drilling programme
- Drilling targets southern Lincoln and the Lincoln-Comet gap
- Lincoln resource remains 2.46Mt at 5.1g/t gold for 402koz
- South Spring Hill Exploration Target remains conceptual
- Approximately 50 high-grade Phase 1 samples prepared for PhotonAssay
Phase 2 Drilling Targets Lincoln’s Gaps
Haranga Resources Limited (ASX:HAR) is moving into the next test of its Lincoln gold story, with Swick’s underground diamond drill rig due to arrive at the California project by the end of the week. The planned Phase 2 programme covers 16 HQ holes for approximately 1,500 metres, with target depths ranging from 40 metres to 230 metres.
The campaign will begin from crosscut 11, where drilling is designed to intersect multiple interpreted mineralised lodes in the southern portion of the resource and improve confidence in the geological model approaching the historical Old Lincoln workings. The rig is then expected to retreat to crosscuts 10 and 9 for shorter fan holes aimed at the under-drilled section between the Lincoln and Comet zones. No underground drilling has previously been completed from XC10, leaving a comparatively thin information set in that part of the current model.
Infrastructure Removes a Practical Constraint
The immediate significance of the announcement is operational rather than geological: Haranga has installed a new Mine Power Centre at XC7 and completed dewatering of the Stringbean Alley decline and level development areas. The company says the power centre can support the Phase 2 programme as well as further underground development and mining activities, while remaining work is focused on sludge removal and improving the base of the decline.
Lincoln currently carries a Mineral Resource Estimate of 2.46 million tonnes at 5.1 grams per tonne gold for 402,000 ounces, reported at a 2.0g/t cut-off and depleted for mining voids. The new drilling is intended to improve confidence and fill model gaps; it does not, at this stage, represent an increase to that resource.
South Spring Hill Assays Could Support Resource Work
Haranga is also reprocessing residual pulps and half-core from historical holes KDH-0020 and KDH-0021 at South Spring Hill. The holes include reported intervals of 5.3 metres at 1.30g/t gold, and 10.2 metres at 8.91g/t gold plus 4.8 metres at 2.62g/t gold in KDH-0021. New assays will be used to compare the historical results and, subject to validation and technical work, support a possible conversion of the South Spring Hill Exploration Target into an Inferred Resource.
That target is estimated at 1.16 million to 1.64 million tonnes grading 5.4g/t to 5.8g/t gold, or 202,000 to 308,000 ounces. Those figures are conceptual, not a Mineral Resource, and the announcement explicitly cautions that further exploration may not result in a resource estimate. Haranga has also started underground backs sampling of development material to test a historical channel-sampling database, with the results potentially considered for a further Lincoln resource update later in 2026.
High-Grade Checks Add Another Assay Catalyst
Approximately 50 samples from the completed Phase 1 underground drilling programme have been prepared for PhotonAssay analysis, primarily from intervals that returned more than 10g/t gold. The company is using the technique as a complementary check on high-grade results in Lincoln’s coarse-gold mineralisation. In an earlier pilot, six samples returned PhotonAssay results equivalent to 94% to 102% of corresponding screen-fire values, including a sample grading up to 59.4g/t by screen fire.
For shareholders, the sequence now matters: mobilisation and drilling must come first, followed by assays from Phase 2, South Spring Hill reprocessing, backs sampling and the PhotonAssay programme. Haranga is also advancing its proposed re-brand to American West Gold, but the more consequential near-term question is whether the additional data expands the resource or merely improves confidence in what is already known.
Bottom Line?
The project now has a defined drilling plan and supporting underground infrastructure, but the investment case still depends on assays converting geological potential into a larger or better-supported resource.
Questions in the middle?
- Will Phase 2 drilling establish continuity between the Lincoln and Comet zones, or mainly refine the existing geological model?
- Can the South Spring Hill historical results be validated well enough to support an Inferred Resource?
- Will the new PhotonAssay and backs-sampling data materially change the next Lincoln resource estimate?