Mamba puts Meeka East’s 20km gold corridor to its first drill test

Maiden drilling tests 20km gold anomaly

Mamba Exploration (ASX:M24) has moved from target generation to the drill bit at its 70%-owned Meeka East Gold Project in Western Australia, beginning maiden reverse circulation drilling at 140 Foot Well. The company plans up to 50 holes for approximately 6,000 metres across 140 Foot Well, New Australian and Lady Maud, with the campaign expected to finish by mid-December 2026.

The first holes are testing a roughly 7km undercover litho-structural corridor in the Yaloginda Formation that Mamba says has never previously been drilled. The targets were defined by more than 1,300 soil samples, which identified over 20km of gold-in-soil anomalism along the Mulga Bill trend. The current program is therefore an initial test of the exploration model, not a report of new mineralisation or a resource estimate.

The campaign follows the approved 6,000m RC programme, with drilling being carried out by Topdrill using a Schramm 685 rig in two campaigns. Mamba says all permits and access approvals have been granted, site access works are underway and the program can draw on up to $90,000 of co-funding from Western Australia’s Exploration Incentive Scheme.

Copper Hills advances toward Q1 2027 drilling

At Copper Hills, the company has received approval for an initial program of up to 10 diamond holes totalling approximately 2,000 metres, with drilling targeted for the March quarter of 2027. Heritage arrangements are being finalised and discussions with preferred drilling contractors are described as well advanced. A further work program covering the northern Lady Alma area has also been submitted, proposing up to 30 additional RC or diamond holes across about 7,500 metres.

The planned work is aimed at testing the geometry and continuity of historical copper zones along the 3.5km Copper Hills-Lady Alma corridor. Earlier data included intervals such as 26 metres at 1.0% copper from 24 metres and 23.1 metres at 1.1% copper from 39.9 metres, but those results are historical and do not establish a mineral resource. Mamba’s new drilling will be the first designed to test the full corridor systematically at depth, following the historical copper corridor identified across 47 historical holes.

Sampling expands the second copper-gold front

Field activity is running in parallel elsewhere in the portfolio. Mamba has completed about 140 surface samples across previously unsampled parts of Copper Hills and is conducting a first-pass program of 790 samples across the approximately 20km Poison Hills belt. The latter project is subject to an earn-in agreement under which Mamba can earn up to an 80% interest; the company cited earlier vendor rock-chip results with high silver, gold, copper and lead values, but those samples are not new drilling results.

Omni GeoX has also been appointed to manage Mamba’s exploration programs, a move the company links to its October placement and expanded technical requirements. The placement provided the funding backdrop for the current exploration push, while the company’s latest update leaves the key geological questions unresolved: whether the Meeka East soil anomalies carry coherent gold mineralisation at depth, and whether Copper Hills’ historical intersections connect into a mineable-scale system.

Executive remuneration rises with exploration workload

Separately, the board has approved an increase in Executive Director Matt Freedman’s base salary to $250,000 a year, excluding statutory superannuation, effective 29 October 2026. Mamba says the change reflects the expansion of the company’s activities since his appointment, including the Meeka East acquisition, the Copper Hills target and the start of maiden drilling. The board approved the variation without Mr Freedman participating.