Mamba clears the way for 6,000m Meeka East drilling

Meeka East reaches drilling stage

Mamba Exploration (ASX:M24) has moved its flagship Meeka East project from target generation to the drill pad, with heritage and regulatory approvals now in place for a maiden reverse-circulation campaign. The programme is set to cover up to 50 holes and about 6,000 metres across the 140 Foot Well, Lady Maud, New Australian and Bella prospects, with drilling scheduled to begin in late October 2026.

The targets were selected from a 1,300-sample fine-soil programme and historical airborne electromagnetic data. The campaign has also attracted up to $90,000 in co-funding under Western Australia's Exploration Incentive Scheme. That does not remove the geological risk, but it does reduce the immediate cash burden of testing the company's first set of gold targets at Meeka East.

Historical drilling outlines a copper corridor

The quarter's second major thread is Copper Hills and Lady Alma, where Mamba's review of open-file drilling identified 165 copper intersections across 47 holes and 991 metres of mineralised intervals. The intersections stretch across roughly 3km, with copper recorded at both prospects and a largely untested 1.9km gap between them. The company has described the corridor as a priority target rather than a defined resource.

The historical database includes intervals such as 26 metres at 0.96% copper and 0.33 grams per tonne gold at Copper Hills, and 13.4 metres at 1.26% copper at Lady Alma. These are downhole lengths, not confirmed true widths, and the results are historical exploration data. Mamba's reinterpretation shifts the geological model from an intrusion-hosted VMS setting towards a felsic volcanic sequence and a folded synclinal corridor of about 3.5km. The company plans mapping, re-logging, geophysics and a six-hole diamond programme in the first quarter of 2027.

The copper work builds on the 3km copper corridor review, which previously highlighted the same historical intersections and the absence of a mineral resource. The immediate test is whether drilling through the underexplored ground can connect the known mineralisation in a way that supports more than a compelling geological interpretation.

Placement funds a busier exploration pipeline

Mamba ended the September quarter with $865,000 in cash after $210,000 of exploration and evaluation spending and $126,000 of operating outflows. Subsequent to quarter end, it secured firm commitments for a two-tranche placement of approximately $6.0 million at $0.038 a share. Tranche 1, worth about $4.2 million, settled in October, taking reported cash to approximately $4.6 million at the date of the report. A further $1.8 million is expected from Tranche 2, which requires shareholder approval at the 30 November annual general meeting.

The funding event was previously reported as a $6.0 million placement, alongside New Murchison Gold's $500,000 commitment and Peter Cook's appointment as strategic adviser. Mamba has also entered a binding earn-in over the 74km² Poison Hills project, where selective rock-chip samples from the Scorcher Vein returned up to 2,906 grams per tonne silver, 2.63 grams per tonne gold and 0.63% copper. The company cautions that selective rock chips may not represent in-situ grades.

Execution now replaces preparation

“Regional location of the Meeka East Project, including the 140 Foot Well, Copper Hills and Lady Alma prospects.”

For Mamba, the next phase is unusually tangible for a junior explorer: rigs are due at Meeka East, Copper Hills has a defined follow-up workstream, and Poison Hills carries staged spending obligations under the earn-in. The placement strengthens the balance sheet, but it also expands the number of programmes competing for management attention and capital. The first RC results, the shareholder vote on Tranche 2 and the quality of any continuity between Copper Hills and Lady Alma will determine whether the expanded exploration story gains geological weight.