West Coast Silver has secured a prospecting licence immediately west of its Elizabeth Hill mining lease, opening a new near-mine exploration target with historical silver, copper, nickel and palladium anomalism. The company plans to validate the old data before deciding whether to drill.
- Prospecting Licence P47/2033 granted beside Elizabeth Hill mining lease
- Historical results include 5m at 5.2g/t silver and 1m at 11g/t silver
- Coherent surface silver anomalies align with interpreted structures
- Licence held 70% by West Coast Silver and 30% by GreenTech Holdings
- Target definition and geophysics precede potential scout drilling
New Licence Extends Elizabeth Hill Footprint
West Coast Silver Limited (ASX:WCE) has added a prospecting licence directly adjoining the Elizabeth Hill mining lease in Western Australia, giving the company a new near-mine target less than 1 kilometre from its historical silver mine. Prospecting Licence P47/2033 covers the Elizabeth Hill West prospect and is held 70% by West Coast Silver through Crest Silver and 30% by GreenTech Holdings.
The attraction is not simply its postcode. Historical trenching at Elizabeth Hill West returned 5 metres at 5.2 grams per tonne silver, alongside 19,000 parts per million copper and 220 parts per billion palladium. A historical reverse-circulation hole also returned 1 metre at 11g/t silver from 65 metres downhole. Other work identified copper, nickel and palladium mineralisation, while soil sampling has outlined coherent silver anomalies along the contact between the Munni Munni Intrusion and the Cherratta Granitoid Complex.
Historical Data Offers Both Evidence and Friction
West Coast Silver says the ground has been underexplored for silver because earlier campaigns focused mainly on nickel, copper and platinum group elements. Several historical holes were not assayed for silver, and only seven of 521 historical drill samples that were analysed for silver returned results above detection limits. The company therefore sees an opportunity to reassess the prospect using the geological and structural model developed at Elizabeth Hill.
That opportunity comes with important qualifications. The reported trench intervals are approximate, true widths are not known, sampling and assay methods varied between operators, and historical quality-control information is incomplete. The announcement presents these results as exploration evidence rather than a resource estimate; no mineral resource, reserve or economic assessment has been reported for Elizabeth Hill West.
Three-Stage Path to Possible Drilling
West Coast Silver intends to begin with data consolidation, three-dimensional interpretation and field validation, including a review of historical holes and intervals that were never tested for silver. It then plans targeted surface sampling and geophysical work, potentially using induced polarisation, gravity, electromagnetic and CSAMT surveys to refine the structural model.
Only after that target-definition work would the company consider first-pass aircore or reverse-circulation drilling. The sequencing is significant: the immediate announcement is about securing prospective ground and building a target pipeline, not reporting a new discovery. The next useful evidence will be whether modern fieldwork and geophysics confirm the historical silver patterns and produce drill targets with a coherent geometry.
Bottom Line?
The licence improves West Coast Silver’s strategic position around Elizabeth Hill, but the investment case still depends on validation work and future drilling converting historical anomalies into repeatable mineralisation.
Questions in the middle?
- Will field validation confirm the historical silver anomalies and their structural continuity?
- How much of the historical drilling can be reliably reassessed for silver using modern sampling and interpretation?
- When will West Coast Silver commit to scout drilling, and what results would justify advancing beyond the first-pass stage?