NewPeak follows the gold trend west at Las Opeñas

Western Las Opeñas target moves to the drill queue

NewPeak Metals Limited (ASX:NPM) is taking its Las Opeñas discovery west. The company has secured a drill rig for a minimum 1,000-metre Phase 2 diamond campaign in San Juan Province, Argentina, designed to test whether the system becomes more gold-rich towards the Belleza Breccia volcanic centre.

The program is funded from NewPeak’s recently completed placement and is scheduled to commence in mid-October 2026. The timing is significant because the company is not repeating the first campaign’s broad search for scale; it is now testing a specific geological interpretation generated by Phase 1 drilling. Additional metres remain conditional on core observations, rig availability and funding.

Broad Phase 1 intercepts point west

Phase 1 produced wide gold-equivalent intercepts across a mineralised system that remains open in multiple directions. Results included 84 metres at 0.72g/t AuEq from 20 metres, including 0.50g/t gold, 0.60% zinc and 4.01g/t silver; 283 metres at 0.67g/t AuEq from seven metres; and 465 metres at 0.50g/t AuEq from surface.

Further intervals included 117 metres at 0.60g/t AuEq from 77 metres and 284 metres at 0.40g/t AuEq from the same depth. The company’s headline earlier holes, including the 663m discovery intercept, returned long polymetallic intersections from surface, while NewPeak says gold grades increased in the two western-most holes.

Phase 2 tests the higher-grade thesis

NewPeak interprets the mineralised system as trending west-southwest up a significant gully through the felsic dome complex at Belleza Breccia. Its geological model suggests the volcanic centre may have acted as the source of the mineralising fluids, making the untested western extension the company’s priority target.

Managing Director Mark Purcell said Phase 1 had confirmed a “genuinely large-scale mineralised system” and provided a vector for follow-up drilling. Phase 2 is intended to test that vector directly and define what the company describes as a potentially higher-grade core, rather than establish a mineral resource or reserve.

Assays will decide whether scale becomes grade

For shareholders, the next meaningful test is not simply whether drilling intersects more mineralisation. It is whether the western holes deliver stronger gold grades over useful widths and clarify the geometry of the system. The current evidence supports a large, open gold-zinc-silver-lead system, but the proposed gold-dominant zone remains an exploration target until drilling and assays confirm it.

NewPeak is continuing detailed relogging and geochemical analysis of Phase 1 data while refining Phase 2 hole locations. The first results from the western campaign should therefore carry greater interpretive weight than another broad intercept alone: they may help determine whether Las Opeñas has a distinct gold-rich centre or mainly a large, lower-grade polymetallic footprint.