The Hole Truth: Mining Investment Podcast

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Oct 2026

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The Hole Truth: Mining Investment Podcast is a product of Resources Rising Stars, hosted by Paul Armstrong, a seasoned expert in the world of finance and resources. With more than 30 years of experience as a finance journalist under his belt, Paul brings a wealth of knowledge and insight to his conversations with some of the most prominent figures in the industry. Each episode of The Hole Truth: Mining Investment Podcast is a deep dive into the inner workings of those resources companies which are making things happen, quizzing those in charge about their projects, their prospects, the challenges they face and the opportunities they offer to investors. Whether you’re an investor, industry professional, or simply interested in the latest developments in mining, energy, and resources, The Hole Truth is the podcast for you. Join Paul and his guests to hear about the latest investment opportunities in the resources sector. Produced by Resource Media ———— The Hole Truth: Mining Investment Podcast is a product of Read Corporate. Please note that Read Corporate does not provide investment advice and investors should seek personalised advice before making any investment decisions.

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October 26, 2026Episode 14115 min

Great Southern onto something or some things big in WA | Matt Keane (ASX: GSN)

Great Southern Mining (ASX: GSN) is drilling three gold projects in WA. All have no mineralization and sit on the doorsteps of majors with big hungry plants. They're also waiting excitedly for essays from a big project in Queensland, where joint venture partner Goldfields has drilled its first holes. Guest bio Matt Keane is Managing Director of Great Southern Mining Limited (ASX: GSN), a Perth-based gold explorer with a portfolio in the Laverton region of Western Australia and a joint venture with Gold Fields in Queensland. The company's Duketon Gold Project covers 549 square kilometres of the Duketon greenstone belt north of Laverton and includes the Golden Boulder and Amy Clarke prospects. It also holds the Mon Ami Gold Project, 12 kilometres south-east of Laverton, and the East Laverton Nickel-Gold Project. In Queensland, Gold Fields is earning a 75 per cent interest in the Edinburgh Park Project near the Mt Carlton mine by funding up to A$15 million of exploration. Keane has around 20 years of experience across mining, exploration and financial markets. His technical background includes exploration and mine geology, mine scheduling and design, resource and reserve estimation and production management, and he has worked on mergers and acquisitions at BHP, Paladin Energy and Lynas Rare Earths. He spent eight years as a metals and mining analyst at Argonaut Securities before becoming Chief Executive Officer of S2 Resources, which held exploration assets in Australia and Finland. He was appointed Managing Director of Great Southern Mining in September 2022. Produced by Resource Media The Hole Truth: Mining Investment Podcast is a product of Read Corporate. Please note that Read Corporate does not provide investment advice and investors should seek personalised advice before making any investment decisions. Resources LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/the-hole-truth-podcast YouTube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLI4sZkSfEpPi_u7OrD7lQ-tZHbdy6EhCC Website: https://resourcesrisingstars.com.au/the-hole-truth-podcast/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theholetruthpodcast/ Company website: https://www.greatsouthernmining.com.au/ Key Insights A former analyst is running the three-part playbook he used to preach. Keane spent years on the other side of the desk telling companies where they were going right and wrong, and he is applying that to Great Southern. Raise money, drill holes and tell the market about it are all happening at once. Around 15,000 metres have been drilled since June, the biggest campaign since the company's inception, and the results have been high grade across all three targets with mineralisation being extended. The company is still funded for the program, the rig is expected to keep turning into the Christmas period, and drilling will restart hard in the new year. In his view, the best returns in the sector come from the discovery curve. Golden Boulder has a 3.5 kilometre trend that has barely been drilled to depth. The prospect has gold along 3.5 kilometres of strike, yet most holes reach only about 100 metres and the deepest sit around 150 metres. The northern 1.1 kilometres has the densest drilling and consistent high-grade hits, and a little diamond drilling has given the team a clear view of the controls, with stacked mineralisation inside a shear. Phase two is about to start, with pads being cleared for work both along strike in the south and deeper down. Deep, for Great Southern, means the next 200 to 300 metres, which an aircore rig with a booster can reach at a much lower cost than diamond drilling. The prospects sit on structures that Regis has followed to 700 to 800 metres. Golden Boulder sits on the Rosemont Shear Zone, one of the more prolific gold-bearing structures in the Duketon belt, and Regis Resources has followed deposits on it down to between 700 and 800 metres below surface. The pattern of regular repeats down the structure to Great Southern's own ground, with no sign of the system closing off, leads Keane to say he would love to find another Rosemont. Amy Clarke, about three kilometres to the north-east on the same tenement, has 4.7 kilometres of consistent mineralisation along a shear that runs toward Regis's old Erlistoun pit. Its first aircore program returned up to 7 grams per tonne gold from near surface in holes only about 50 metres deep. Mon Ami is a shallow 55,500 ounce resource surrounded by processing infrastructure. Mon Ami, near Laverton, holds a resource of 55,500 ounces, and earlier drilling this year extended it by up to 70 metres down dip and 55 metres down plunge, with a further hole 200 metres to the north hitting similar shallow grade. It sits among several established gold processing facilities, including the Genesis operation and Granny Smith, with Brightstar also building a mill to the south-east. That cluster of hungry mills is the reason Keane thinks Great Southern would need a discovery of three to five million ounces before building its own plant, and why any discovery should carry value for its neighbours. The company shares information with Regis, the other main player in the belt, with the shared aim of accelerating discovery. Gold Fields is waiting on assays from deep holes it extended on the spot at Mt Dillon. Gold Fields is funding up to A$15 million at the Edinburgh Park Project near Mt Carlton, in a region of large intrusive-related gold systems, and is chasing a multi-million ounce tier one discovery. Its first diamond holes at the Mt Dillon target showed a lot of sulphur and many of the hallmarks of an epithermal system, and the drillers used all the rods on the truck to push both holes to nearly 800 metres. First assays are expected later this month, with a full announcement around mid-November. With Gold Fields earning up to 75 per cent, Great Southern would keep 25 per cent of any monster discovery, which Keane calls a game changer for a company worth about $24 million.

October 20, 2026Episode 14011 min

Two Huge Resources With a Market Cap of $55 Million - Patrick Duffy | Sunstone Metals (ASX: STM)

It would seem opportunity knocks for investors in Sunstone Metals. There appears to be a big disconnect between the market cap of the company and the amount of metal they have in the ground. Guest bio Patrick Duffy is Managing Director of Sunstone Metals Limited (ASX: STM), an Ecuador-focused gold-copper explorer advancing the Bramaderos gold-copper project in the south of the country and the El Palmar gold-copper project in the north. Duffy is a Chartered Accountant who began his career at Ernst & Young. He was Chief Corporate Development Officer and Chief Financial Officer at Red 5 Limited (now Vault Minerals), where he led financing for the King of the Hills gold mine and the sale of the Siana mine in the Philippines. Earlier he was Chief Financial Officer of the Tampakan copper-gold project and Director of Strategy and Performance at Xstrata Copper and for the Koniambo Nickel Project, and has worked in management consulting, mining private equity and agricultural technology. He joined the Sunstone board as a Non-Executive Director in November 2023 and became Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer in April 2024. Produced by Resource Media The Hole Truth: Mining Investment Podcast is a product of Read Corporate. Please note that Read Corporate does not provide investment advice and investors should seek personalised advice before making any investment decisions. Resources LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/the-hole-truth-podcast YouTube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLI4sZkSfEpPi_u7OrD7lQ-tZHbdy6EhCC Website: https://resourcesrisingstars.com.au/the-hole-truth-podcast/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theholetruthpodcast/ Company website: https://www.sunstonemetals.com.au/ Key Insights A $55 million market cap sits against a resource Duffy values at 30 to 50 dollars an ounce. Duffy calls Sunstone absolutely mispriced. The Bramaderos resource now stands at 6.2 million ounces of gold equivalent, and across the company's global resource of 7.5 million ounces the market is paying less than US$10 an ounce, where he believes the stock should trade at between $30 and $50. He thinks the market has not yet grasped the scale, and compares the potential of an open-pit Bramaderos with Lundin Gold's Fruta del Norte, a single-asset Ecuadorian producer now worth around $25 billion. He also draws on his time at Red 5, where he helped build the King of the Hills gold mine, and says Bramaderos is a far superior project. The resource doubled in 12 months, and Duffy sees a short path to 10 million ounces. The new estimate is pit constrained and rests on holes that were mineralised from surface to the bottom of the hole through the year. Beyond it sits an exploration target of a further 4 to 11 million ounces, and Duffy sees a pathway to at least 10 million ounces in the short term and 15 to 20 million ounces one day. The resource is currently split between two pits, with an undrilled strike connecting them that he expects to grow into one super pit at least two kilometres by two kilometres and 300 to 400 metres deep. A recent 26 grams per tonne intersection over six to seven metres shows higher grade pockets that the resource does not yet reflect. The grade is low by ASX standards and normal for a South American porphyry, which is where the economics come from. The resource averages 0.42 grams per tonne gold equivalent, rising to about 0.45 grams per tonne in the 3.3 million ounce Indicated category across roughly 230 million tonnes. Duffy says that is typical for a porphyry in the region and argues that what matters is the margin on each ounce, which he puts at US$2,500 to $3,000 an ounce at current gold prices. He expects a future mine to produce at least 300,000 to 400,000 ounces a year at an all-in sustaining cost of about $1,200 to $1,300 an ounce, with higher grade material arriving in the early years. El Palmar is a 15 to 45 million ounce exploration target, drilling again for the first time in three years. In northern Ecuador, El Palmar sits on the Toachi Fault system that hosts the Cascabel and Llurimagua copper systems, and Duffy believes it could be a third major discovery and a replica of Cascabel. Drilling has restarted after three years, aimed at deeper systems comparable in scale to the region's large copper porphyries, with results expected later this year. DGR Global, led by SolGold founder Nick Mather, has taken a 10% stake in Sunstone, which Duffy sees as endorsement from a team that has been through this before. A bigger Indicated resource and better metallurgy could make a new scoping study far more compelling. Duffy says metallurgical results since April have shown a significant improvement in gold and copper recoveries and a cleaner copper concentrate, and the Indicated portion is much larger. The previous scoping study returned a valuation of $1.2 billion, and he expects a study released now would be significantly higher, with the possibility of higher throughput and a de-risked, resource-based case. He recently met investors in Hong Kong, where he found more optimism than in Australia and strong belief in gold, and expects that interest to start showing in the share price.

September 21, 2026Episode 13915 min

Xpedra's Sensational Gold Results in New South Wales - Scott Funston (ASX: XPD)

Xpedra has generated some sensational drilling results from its Springfield gold project in New South Wales. The company and the project appear to be at an inflection point. Another round of drilling is about to start. There's plenty of gold. It's just a question of how much. Produced by Resource Media The Hole Truth: Mining Investment Podcast is a product of Read Corporate . Please note that Read Corporate does not provide investment advice and investors should seek personalised advice before making any investment decisions. Resources LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/the-hole-truth-podcast YouTube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLI4sZkSfEpPi_u7OrD7lQ-tZHbdy6EhCC Website: https://resourcesrisingstars.com.au/the-hole-truth-podcast/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theholetruthpodcast/ Company website: https://xpedraresources.com/

September 15, 2026Episode 13814 min

Unlocking the Gateway at Gateway | Richard Pugh (ASX: GML)

Gateway appears to have cracked the code at its Yandal Gold Project in Western Australia, with some cracking results. The upside now could be huge. Guest bio Richard Pugh is Chief Executive Officer of Gateway Mining Limited (ASX: GML), a Perth-based gold explorer whose flagship Yandal Gold Project covers 1,780 square kilometres on the eastern flank of the Yandal greenstone belt in Western Australia, alongside the Glenburgh South and Barrelmaker projects. Pugh is a geologist with more than 18 years of industry experience, having worked as a senior consulting geologist and exploration manager for ASX-listed explorers. He came to Gateway with the ground already familiar. As Technical Director of the Yandal Gold Project at Strickland Metals, he ran the work that turned Millrose from an unloved asset into a $61 million sale to Northern Star Resources, and led the drilling at Horse Well that more than doubled the resource there and established what controls the gold along the belt. Gateway acquired the Yandal project from Strickland in August 2025 for $45 million in convertible preference shares, and Pugh was appointed Chief Executive Officer shortly afterwards. Pugh holds a Bachelor of Science in Exploration and Resource Geology from Cardiff University and is a Member of the Australian Institute of Geoscientists, acting as Competent Person under the JORC Code for the company's results. He works alongside Executive Chairman Andrew Bray, a foundation shareholder and former Chief Executive Officer of Strickland Metals, and Non-Executive Directors Anthony McClure, David Morgan and David Crook. Produced by Resource Media The Hole Truth: Mining Investment Podcast is a product of Read Corporate . Please note that Read Corporate does not provide investment advice and investors should seek personalised advice before making any investment decisions. Resources LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/the-hole-truth-podcast YouTube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLI4sZkSfEpPi_u7OrD7lQ-tZHbdy6EhCC Website: https://resourcesrisingstars.com.au/the-hole-truth-podcast/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theholetruthpodcast/ Company website: https://www.gatewaymining.com.au/ Key Insights Five years of watching where gold sits, and where it doesn't, produced a four-box checklist. Pugh frames the Cowza discovery as an overnight success five years in the making. Working across Millrose and Horse Well from 2021, he and his team noticed that the deposits behaving best were the ones sitting on a particular contact. Palomino and Warmblood, the two largest at Horse Well, sit on a mafic-intermediate contact, run high grade, plunge north and remain open in fresh rock. Bronco and Marwari, formed in the footwall, carried good oxide and transitional gold but had no contact for the gold to drop out against, so they stayed shallow. From those observations came four criteria: the mafic-intermediate contact, evidence of fluid flow in the form of demagnetised zones where the fluid has stripped magnetite from the rock, northeast-trending structures creating the gaps for gold to settle into, and a position on the Celia Shear. Cowza jumped out of the dataset more than anywhere else. The first test of the thesis in fresh rock returned 41 metres at 2 grams per tonne. Cowza had been drilled in the 1990s by Eagle Mining, which found good oxide and transitional results in the southern part of the prospect but nothing with roots underneath. Gateway pulled the historic chips, sent them for multi-element analysis and found a single rock type with no mafic component, which said the contact they wanted was further east. Three lines of aircore on that contact returned 4 metres at 3 grams per tonne and 4 metres at 4.7 grams per tonne. Cowza ticked every box: 4.5 kilometres of demagnetisation, buffered against two northeast-trending structures on the Celia lineament, and now a proven mafic-intermediate contact. Six reverse circulation holes were then drilled into fresh rock beneath the oxide intercepts. The first punched through a 40-metre-wide shear zone and returned 41 metres at 2 grams per tonne gold from 104 metres, including 9 metres at 7.5 grams per tonne. As Pugh puts it, the hypothesis was right. The checklist travels, and there is more than 13 kilometres of strike to run it across. The value of a repeatable set of criteria is that it can be pointed at ground nobody has drilled. Gateway announced one such target on the morning of this interview: Pewy, a Cowza look-alike sitting south of the Ward prospect along the Celia Shear, with three kilometres of demagnetisation on the mafic-intermediate contact and no drill testing to date. Flanking aircore has already returned 8 metres at 1 gram per tonne to the south and 4 metres at 1.4 grams per tonne to the north, which Pugh reads as everything vectoring towards the demagnetised zone. With Cowza, Celia South and Ward's seven-kilometre trend, the known mineralised corridor runs beyond 13 kilometres and could stretch to 19 if the gap between Ward and Cowza fills in. Pugh's view on what that could amount to is unambiguous: Horse Well could be a million ounces in its own right, Cowza multi-million, and Pewy multi-million again. A $25 million raise that closed at $45 million, and a $60 million war chest behind a $230 million company. Gateway went to market for $25 million and came away with $45 million at 8 cents a share, lead managed by JP Equity Partners. The swing factor was London-based Jupiter Asset Management, an existing shareholder Pugh says was one of the few funds appearing on the register daily and actively picking up stock. Gateway had modelled Jupiter for $5 million to $10 million. It came in for $20 million. Add $15.1 million in cash and liquid securities, including $8.23 million banked from selling the Brightstar Resources shares Gateway received for the Montague East gold rights, and the company is carrying roughly $60 million against a market capitalisation of about $230 million. Ninety cents in every dollar goes to the new discovery and ten cents to tidying up the existing resources. Two diamond rigs arrive at the end of the month, around six rigs should be turning at Cowza by year end, Pewy drilling starts in October, and a 120,000-metre reverse circulation and diamond program is now funded. The existing 400,400 ounces still has a depth story, and Jundee is 50 kilometres away. The Yandal resource Gateway bought from Strickland stands at 8.17 million tonnes at 1.52 grams per tonne for 400,400 ounces, weighted to the Horse Well camp with Dusk 'til Dawn alongside it. That resource was built for a purpose, constraining as much oxide and transitional material as possible into $4,000 gold pit shells to around 140 metres depth, which is why the fresh rock below it has barely been tested. Palomino and Warmblood are both open at depth and down plunge. On the corporate question, Gateway sits about 50 kilometres from Northern Star's Jundee operations, and Pugh is straightforward that the same management group transacted the Millrose deal with Northern Star, making a sale one option among several. The bigger the company gets, the more options it has, and at multi-million ounces it could stand alone. Executive Chairman Andrew Bray has put more than $10 million of his own money into the register and takes no options or performance rights.

September 7, 2026Episode 13724 min

The Kaoko copper cracker | Gerard O'Donovan (ASX: KAO)

Kaoko's share price has run wild on the back of the first two holes at its copper project in Namibia. The company is clearly onto something. The only question is, how big is it? Guest bio Gerard O'Donovan is Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Kaoko Metals Limited (ASX: KAO), a West Perth-based explorer advancing the Chalkos Copper-Silver Project in Namibia's Kaoko Copper Belt and the Karibib Copper-Gold-Tungsten Project in the Damara Belt. O'Donovan brings more than 18 years of experience across exploration, project development and mining operations, spanning IPO delivery and growth-stage resources companies. Before co-founding Kaoko, he held roles with Pilbara Minerals, Fortescue Metals Group and Rio Tinto. He formed the company in 2024 with geologists Callum Standing and Harry Madley around a deliberately contrarian strategy of true greenfields exploration in highly prospective ground, and took Kaoko to the ASX in May 2026 through a $6.5 million IPO at 20 cents a share. O'Donovan holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Civil and Structural, Honours) and is the company's largest individual shareholder. He is joined on the board by Non-Executive Chair Mark Thompson, founder of Talga Group and Catalyst Metals, and Non-Executive Director Jody Dahrouge of Dahrouge Geological Consulting. Produced by Resource Media The Hole Truth: Mining Investment Podcast is a product of Read Corporate. Please note that Read Corporate does not provide investment advice and investors should seek personalised advice before making any investment decisions. Resources LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/the-hole-truth-podcast YouTube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLI4sZkSfEpPi_u7OrD7lQ-tZHbdy6EhCC Website: https://resourcesrisingstars.com.au/the-hole-truth-podcast/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theholetruthpodcast/ Company website: https://kaokometals.com.au/ Key Insights Two holes from one drill pad delivered broad, shallow visual copper at Otniel. Kaoko's maiden diamond program at the Otniel prospect drilled two holes from a single pad, angled in opposite directions roughly 60 metres apart at depth. DDOT001 returned 51.83 metres of visible copper mineralisation from 39.27 metres, including 17.20 metres of strong visible mineralisation from 58.37 metres. DDOT002 went better again with 60.25 metres from 36.65 metres, including a 32.36-metre zone of strong visible mineralisation from 59.30 metres, where chalcocite and malachite were estimated at 5 to 8 per cent and native copper at around 4 per cent between 86.40 and 91.66 metres. O'Donovan describes the moment the first core came out of the tube as a "holy moly" moment, with chair Mark Thompson telling him on site, "this isn't normal." Holes three and four have stepped out 75 metres either way and drilling is continuing. Until the assays land, the mineralogy is the story. O'Donovan is careful to point out that these are visuals rather than grades, with assays four to six weeks away. What the logging has confirmed is a copper mineral suite that reads well: malachite as an oxide, chalcocite as a secondary sulphide that can carry up to 80 per cent copper, and chalcopyrite as a primary sulphide, alongside cuprite, native copper and dioptase, a gem-quality mineral collectors buy in its own right. Mylonitisation zones in both holes coincide with the strongest mineralisation, pointing to structural control on where the copper sits. The presence of primary sulphides also feeds the bigger question O'Donovan wants answered, which is where the source of the system lies at depth. A ten-bagger in four months, built on grassroots conviction that the market initially passed on. Kaoko listed on the ASX in May 2026 at 20 cents with a market capitalisation of roughly $12.1 million and $6.5 million in the bank, on the back of an 80,000-hectare land package with high-grade surface expressions including 69.6 per cent copper and 2,030 grams per tonne silver. O'Donovan is candid that plenty of investors he pitched told him there was "not enough meat on the bone." The stock closed at $2.50 the day before this interview. He credits the foundation shareholders who backed a genuine greenfields story when the fashion was for advanced assets, and frames his job simply as custodian of shareholder money. The raise came in well above target, funding a second rig and a second work front. O'Donovan went to market targeting $15 million at $2.20 a share. The book closed at $20 million from institutional investors, taking Kaoko's cash position beyond $24 million before costs and settling on 14 September. The money brings a second diamond rig to Chalkos through drilling partner Optima, allowing the company to keep testing Otniel while opening up Donkey Hill, 2.2 kilometres away, within weeks. O'Donovan is deliberate about who comes onto the register, wanting new shareholders aligned with a technically driven, methodical approach rather than a quick trade. One prospect drilled inside 800 square kilometres leaves most of the story untold. Otniel carries around 600 metres of outcropping copper at surface and remains open, potentially dipping under cover. Donkey Hill has more than 800 metres of surface expression across three north-south trending zones, with historic artisanal adits and trenches where chalcocite is still visible in the footwall and hanging wall. Between the two sits Bootless, a third prospect the field team found while mapping, named after co-founder Callum Standing's boots disintegrated in 30-degree heat and had to be tied back on with calico bag strings. Kaoko holds the ground across two exclusive prospecting licences in the same Otavi Subgroup setting that hosts the historic Tsumeb mine, which produced 1.7 million tonnes of copper at 4.3 per cent, and neighbours Midas Minerals' Otavi work. Roads are still being cut across ground that has never been touched.

September 1, 2026Episode 13615 min

Lachlan Star in the sweet spot at Norseman - Andrew Tyrrell (ASX:LSA)

Lachlan Star is churning out some fantastic drilling results from its New Waverley Gold project. It's a brownfields exploration campaign. The project has sat relatively dormant for many years in the hands of private prospectors, and now Lachlan Star is hitting it hard with the drill rig. Guest bio Andrew Tyrrell is Chief Executive Officer of Lachlan Star Limited (ASX: LSA), a Perth-based gold and base metals explorer advancing the New Waverley Gold Project near Norseman in Western Australia's Eastern Goldfields. Tyrrell brings more than two decades of minerals industry experience built around gold exploration and discovery. He joined Lachlan Star as CEO in February 2024 after serving as General Manager of Discovery at Gold Road Resources, where he led the company's transition into a national explorer and restructured its Discovery Group into a self-generating business development model. Before that, he spent a decade at AngloGold Ashanti, including as Technical Manager overseeing global greenfields exploration and as Exploration Manager for the company's USA operations, where he played a key role in the discovery of the Silicon epithermal gold project in Nevada. Tyrrell holds a Master of Science in Ore Deposit Geology from the University of Western Australia and a Bachelor of Science in Applied Geology from Curtin University, and is a member of the Society of Economic Geologists, the Australian Institute of Geoscientists and the Geological Society of Nevada. Produced by Resource Media The Hole Truth: Mining Investment Podcast is a product of Read Corporate. Please note that Read Corporate does not provide investment advice and investors should seek personalised advice before making any investment decisions. Resources LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/the-hole-truth-podcast YouTube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLI4sZkSfEpPi_u7OrD7lQ-tZHbdy6EhCC Website: https://resourcesrisingstars.com.au/the-hole-truth-podcast/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theholetruthpodcast/ Company website: https://lachlanstar.com/ Key Insights 1. A chance meeting at a Norseman servo delivered a 90%-owned high-grade gold project. New Waverley was privately held for close to 40 years by two individual prospectors before Lachlan Star got involved. The most recent, David "Golly" Pascoe, a Norseman local who picked up the ground around 15 years ago, granted the mining lease only last year. Lachlan Star's field team crossed paths with Pascoe by chance at the local service station while working an adjoining project, and months of conversation turned into a deal: Lachlan Star acquired 90% of the project for cash and shares, while Pascoe retained a 10% free-carried interest through to pre-feasibility, a 1% net smelter royalty, and shares in the company. The ground includes the old Waverley open pit, mined by Great Fingall Mining Company NL in 1988 for around 4,500 ounces at an average grade of roughly 14 grams per tonne, before the gold price crash sent the operator into administration and the tenement lapsed. 2. Early drilling is already turning up shallow, high-grade gold. Since completing the acquisition in March 2026, Lachlan Star has pushed through roughly 5,500–6,000 metres of combined diamond and RC drilling, with the RC program expanding well beyond its original scope on the strength of what the rig was turning up. Results include intercepts such as 16m at 5.3g/t gold (including 4m at 20g/t) and 4m at 13.83g/t gold (including 1m at 53g/t), with the individual quartz-reef veins themselves regularly assaying at an ounce or two per tonne. Crucially, the mineralisation sits close to surface — around 40 to 50 metres deep at Waverley Pit, and effectively at surface at Trial Pit, where the company panned free gold from a quartz vein just six metres down. 3. The system is open in every direction across a 400-metre strike — and there are signs of much more. Lachlan Star has now traced the same style of quartz-vein mineralisation across 400 metres of strike, linking the historic Waverley Pit with the Trial Pit and the old Baker Boys shaft to the north, and the zone remains open at depth, down-plunge and along strike. High-resolution drone magnetics acquired in August 2026 point to something bigger still: a structural corridor potentially extending one to two kilometres, comparable in scale to nearby systems such as Pantoro's Royal Group, Harlequin and Mainfield. Lachlan Star's adjoining Killaloe project, about 20 kilometres northeast of Norseman, adds further regional exposure to the same structural setting. 4. Lachlan Star sits ring-fenced by established regional gold producers. New Waverley is around 17 kilometres from Norseman and Pantoro's processing plant, and the project is effectively boxed in by major operators — Pantoro to the west, Westgold to the north and east, and Sinclair Gold (formerly Alicanto Minerals) to the south. That neighbourhood matters: shallow, high-grade ounces like Lachlan Star is finding are exactly what those nearby plants want as feed, opening up toll-treating options at operations such as Westgold's Higginsville or Pantoro's Norseman plant, alongside a standalone development or a straight-out buyout. With a market capitalisation of around $56 million at the time of the interview, Tyrrell argues the company doesn't need a large tonnage outcome to move the needle for shareholders. 5. A maiden resource is targeted for the first quarter of 2027, backed by a fresh 10,000-metre drill campaign. Assays from the remaining RC holes are due over the coming weeks, and Lachlan Star is already lining up an RC rig for a further program of around 10,000 metres to begin within a month or two, aimed at infilling and stitching together the high-grade zones at Waverley Pit, Trial Pit and Baker Boys. Tyrrell is targeting a maiden mineral resource by the first quarter of 2027. The register underpinning that push is tightly held: DevEx Resources (ASX: DEV) retains around 20%, substantial shareholder Tim Goyder holds roughly 11%, and Pascoe remains invested through his retained stake and shares.

August 25, 2026Episode 13523 min

David Flanagan's Arrow Minerals back in business - (ASX: AMD)

Nothing happens by halves in David Flanagan's world. After a long period of suspension on the ASX, Arrow Minerals is back in business with two projects in WA and two in Guinea. The company has a market cap of just sixteen million dollars. Guest Bio David Flanagan is Managing Director of Arrow Minerals (ASX: AMD), which returned to trading in 2026 after Arrow secured clarity over its tenement ownership in Guinea. The company now holds four projects: the Yarraloola Copper Project and a new iron ore project in the Pilbara, Western Australia, alongside the Niagara Bauxite Project and the Simandou North Iron Project in Guinea. A geologist by training, Flanagan founded Atlas Iron in 2004 and led it as managing director and later chair until 2016, building it into an ASX 50 iron ore producer before it was acquired by Hancock Prospecting in 2018. He was previously exploration manager at Gindalbie Gold, served as chancellor of Murdoch University from 2013 to 2019, and was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 2018 for services to mining, community and education. Produced by Resource Media The Hole Truth: Mining Investment Podcast is a product of Read Corporate. Please note that Read Corporate does not provide investment advice and investors should seek personalised advice before making any investment decisions. Links The Hole Truth LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/the-hole-truth-podcast The Hole Truth YouTube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLI4sZkSfEpPi_u7OrD7lQ-tZHbdy6EhCC The Hole Truth Website: https://resourcesrisingstars.com.au/the-hole-truth-podcast/ The Hole Truth Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theholetruthpodcast/ Company Website: https://arrowminerals.com.au/ Key Insights A 424-day suspension is finally behind the company Arrow's shares were suspended for roughly a year after Guinea's mines department placed around 400 exploration tenements, including Arrow's Niagara Bauxite and Simandou North projects, into an ownership review. Flanagan says Arrow made its case and was told a decision would come "in a very short time" — which turned out to mean 424 days. Niagara has now been formally returned to Arrow, with the government working through the remaining tenements, including Simandou North, one by one. A copper-gold bet built on a 1970s "flag" and modern geophysics The Yarraloola Copper Project was attractive to Flanagan for two reasons: Newexco Exploration's Adrian Black and Bill Amann, veterans of discoveries including Nova-Bollinger, identified surface gold tied to a structure on the ground; and historical drilling by Western Mining in the 1970s intersected copper-silver-zinc mineralisation consistent with a VMS system without ever being assayed for gold. Arrow has also struck a deal with Leeuwin Metals (ASX: LM1) over the adjoining, base-metal-prospective tenement. Heritage survey work with the native title group is underway ahead of planned drilling later this year. A Pilbara iron ore punt right next to a $75 million benchmark Arrow's new Barbecue Valley project sits roughly 15 kilometres from Rio Tinto's Robe River joint venture iron ore operations near Onslow, and channel iron deposit (CID) mineralisation is visible outcropping on the tenement itself. Flanagan points to the Robe River joint venture's 2025 acquisition of CZR Resources' adjoining Robe Mesa project for A$75 million as a read on what comparable ground nearby could be worth, and says the plan is to secure heritage clearance and drill as quickly as possible to test for a direct-shipping-ore style deposit. Niagara bauxite is banking on the Simandou rail line The core reason Arrow went to Guinea, Flanagan says, was the newly built Simandou multi-user railway, which has capacity well beyond what the Simandou mines it primarily serves will use. Arrow has an MOU with Baosteel, the resources arm of China's Baowu Steel Group and a key financier of the broader Simandou project, over access and offtake. Arrow finished a scoping study on Niagara just as the suspension hit and never published it; Flanagan plans further supplier and cost meetings in Guinea in September to refresh the numbers before releasing an updated study. A four-project portfolio stacked under a $16 million market cap Flanagan describes Arrow's approach as layering multiple value-creating opportunities — Yarraloola, Barbecue Valley, Niagara and Simandou North — on top of each other rather than trying to fund and develop every asset alone, with a preference for bringing in partners once projects are proven up. With renewed investor interest already flowing in since the suspension lifted, Flanagan argues the leverage across four assets, both in Western Australia and Guinea, is significant relative to the company's current $16 million market capitalisation.

August 17, 2026Episode 13426 min

Powerhaus Uranium to Hit the ASX Boards Running - Siobahn Lancaster (ASX: POW)

Powerhaus has just raised $9 million in an IPO. The company has two exploration projects in Argentina and one in Canada. It’s looking for big uranium deposits with a potential to generate strong returns with low costs, and capitalise on the fantastic outlook for the uranium price. Guest Bio Siobhan Lancaster is Managing Director and CEO of Powerhaus Uranium (ASX: POW), a uranium exploration company targeting regional-scale, roll-front and calcrete-hosted uranium systems in Argentina, together with a basement-hosted uranium project on the eastern edge of Canada’s Athabasca Basin. She was previously Managing Director and CEO of 92 Energy Limited (ASX: 92E), which delivered a high-grade uranium discovery at its Gemini project in the Athabasca Basin before the company was absorbed into ATHA Energy Corp. Before that, Lancaster held a senior corporate role at Extract Resources, where she played a key part in the company’s Husab uranium discovery in Namibia and its subsequent circa A$2.2 billion takeover by China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN). Produced by Resource Media The Hole Truth: Mining Investment Podcast is a product of Read Corporate. Please note that Read Corporate does not provide investment advice and investors should seek personalised advice before making any investment decisions. Links The Hole Truth LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/the-hole-truth-podcast The Hole Truth YouTube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLI4sZkSfEpPi_u7OrD7lQ-tZHbdy6EhCC The Hole Truth Website: https://resourcesrisingstars.com.au/the-hole-truth-podcast/ The Hole Truth Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theholetruthpodcast/ Company Website: https://powerhausuranium.com/ Key Insights A high-conviction analogy to the world’s lowest-cost uranium deposits Powerhaus’s flagship Malbec Project covers roughly 2,000 square kilometres along the Andes in Argentina’s Chubut province, and Lancaster believes the geology mirrors Kazakhstan’s roll-front, in-situ recovery (ISR) uranium systems. Kazakhstan-style roll-front deposits account for around 40% of the world’s mined uranium and are among the lowest-cost to produce, giving Powerhaus a clear analogy for what success at Malbec could look like. Early fieldwork has already turned up mineralisation Reconnaissance at Malbec has confirmed uranium within the Salamanca Formation and identified a calcrete-hosted discovery on site, with grab sampling returning grades up to 771ppm U3O8. For Lancaster, that’s proof the system isn’t barren ahead of the company’s maiden drill program. Drilling starts within weeks of listing With environmental approvals and drilling permits well advanced, Powerhaus expects to mobilise a 5,000-metre drill program at Malbec around September or October — inside the first fortnight of trading. Lancaster is chasing a repeat of 92 Energy’s Gemini discovery, where the company intersected uranium on just its fourth drill hole. A second uranium address alongside a past Athabasca Basin success Powerhaus also holds ground on the eastern edge of Canada’s Athabasca Basin, on trend with the historic Rabbit Lake deposit — the basin’s first uranium mine, which produced roughly 200 million pounds of U3O8. Previous drilling on the ground returned encouraging uranium and graphite indicators, and Powerhaus plans follow-up geophysics to sharpen its drill targets. A reunited discovery team backing a tightly held register Powerhaus’s board reunites veterans of two of the ASX uranium sector’s biggest wins: Extract Resources, whose Husab discovery led to a roughly A$2.2 billion takeover by China General Nuclear Power Corporation, and 92 Energy’s Athabasca Basin success. Chair Richard Pearce and technical director Philippe Portella (35 years with Areva) are joined by Steve Blower — who led the team behind IsoEnergy’s high-grade Hurricane discovery — along with Andrew Penkethman and uranium marketer Sashi Davies, underpinning a $9 million IPO that leaves Powerhaus tightly held heading into its maiden drill campaigns.

August 4, 2026Episode 13317 min

Solstice Minerals' Major Copper Discover in WA - Nick Castleden (ASX: SLS)

Solstice Minerals has a major copper discovery in Western Australia and appears set to develop a super pit of copper 100 kilometres south of Meekatharra. Guest Bio Nick Castleden is Managing Director and CEO of Solstice Minerals Limited (ASX: SLS). He is a geologist with more than 25 years' experience in mineral exploration and development, holding a BSc (Hons) in Geology from the University of Western Australia. He has worked with Mt Isa Mines, Perilya Mines, MPI Mines and LionOre across exploration, project generation and management roles in Africa, North and South America and Australia, with particular expertise in Western Australian gold, nickel and base metal exploration. Prior to joining Solstice, he was Managing Director of Apollo Consolidated Ltd until its acquisition by Ramelius Resources in late 2021. He commenced as CEO and Managing Director of Solstice Minerals in January 2023. Produced by Resource Media The Hole Truth: Mining Investment Podcast is a product of Read Corporate. Please note that Read Corporate does not provide investment advice and investors should seek personalised advice before making any investment decisions. Links The Hole Truth LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/the-hole-truth-podcast The Hole Truth YouTube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLI4sZkSfEpPi_u7OrD7lQ- tZHbdy6EhCC The Hole Truth Website: https://resourcesrisingstars.com.au/the-hole-truth-podcast/ The Hole Truth Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theholetruthpodcast/ Company Website: https://solsticeminerals.com.au/ Key Insights The Nanadie discovery is open in every direction. Solstice's Nanadie Copper-Gold Project, roughly 100km south-east of Meekatharra in WA's Murchison district, is currently traced along 1.2km of strike with a mineralised host gabbro 100-200 metres wide. Recent deep diamond drilling shows the system remains wide open at depth, while RC drilling is extending it further north and south, giving Solstice multiple avenues for near-term resource growth. Deep drilling is confirming scale, not just a surface story. A 629-metre hole returned multiple long runs of over 1% copper, and a follow-up hole drilled to roughly 800 metres hit similar high-grade material in the same host rock before running out of drill rods. Castleden points to these paired deep intercepts as evidence of a genuinely large volume of mineralised rock, with potential for a second, underground stage of the deposit beneath the open pit. The resource is expected to grow materially from its starting point. Solstice acquired an existing Inferred Mineral Resource of roughly 40 million tonnes, compiled from several previous owners' drilling with no clearly defined margins. Castleden says the company's own drilling has already shown the deposit extends well beyond that footprint in every direction, and expects the next resource update to be materially larger than the one it started with. A strong balance sheet is funding an aggressive, dilution-free drill campaign. With around $45 million in cash and no debt, Solstice can keep multiple rigs turning without needing to raise capital in the near term. The stock now has three broker analysts covering it, and six analysts are visiting the site the following week, reflecting growing institutional interest in a rare tier-one scale copper discovery in Western Australia. Solstice remains firmly in exploration mode, with a separate gold asset as a bonus. The board and management, all geologists with meaningful equity in the company, are focused squarely on drilling out Nanadie rather than mine planning at this stage, with early metallurgical, water and flora-fauna studies just getting underway. Solstice also holds a separate gold package near Cue that it has flagged publicly it may look to monetise or spin out into a new company.

July 28, 2026Episode 13217 min

Noronex: On the Tin Trail in the US | James Thompson (ASX: NRX)

Noronex has put its foot on a substantial tin project in Alaska. It has a historical resource, and the emphasis will be on establishing a JORC resource and then growing this to capitalise on booming global demand for tin. Tin is on the US Critical Minerals list, but there are no tin producers in America. Guest Bio James Thompson is Chief Executive Officer of Noronex Limited (ASX: NRX), an ASX-listed mineral explorer advancing the newly optioned Sleitat tin-tungsten-silver project in Alaska alongside its Kalahari Copper Belt interests in Namibia and Botswana. He was appointed CEO in July 2026, coinciding with Noronex securing an exclusive option over Sleitat. Thompson has been involved with Noronex since 2018, when he became a director of the company's founding copper subsidiaries, before being appointed an executive director of the company in May 2021. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce and a Bachelor of Laws, and began his career as a chartered accountant with KPMG. Over a 25-year career he has built investment experience with firms including Macquarie Bank, Quadrant Private Equity and Viburnum Funds, where he has served as Investment Director since 2014. He has also been a founder and director of numerous other ASX-listed and private resource companies over the past decade, spanning the base, precious and battery metals sectors. Produced by Resource Media The Hole Truth: Mining Investment Podcast is a product of Read Corporate . Please note that Read Corporate does not provide investment advice and investors should seek personalised advice before making any investment decisions. Links The Hole Truth LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/the-hole-truth-podcast The Hole Truth YouTube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLI4sZkSfEpPi_u7OrD7lQ-tZHbdy6EhCC The Hole Truth Website: https://resourcesrisingstars.com.au/the-hole-truth-podcast/ The Hole Truth Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theholetruthpodcast/ Company Website: https://www.noronexlimited.com.au/ Key Insights Sleitat gives Noronex a rare, near-term entry into US tin supply. Noronex has secured a 60-day option to acquire 100% of the Sleitat tin-tungsten-silver project in Alaska, targeting a historical (non-JORC) estimate of 25.9 million tonnes at up to 0.37% tin, representing an estimated 58,000 to 96,000 tonnes of contained tin. With the US holding no domestic tin production and tin formally designated a critical mineral by the US government, the deal places Noronex in a category with almost no ASX-listed peers targeting US tin supply. The project is genuine brownfields, not a speculative punt. Sleitat was discovered and drilled by Cominco in the 1980s, including a standout historical intercept of 30 metres at 1.5% tin, with the US Bureau of Mines later compiling the historical resource estimate from that work. Thompson notes Noronex has since re-examined the preserved drill core using XRF technology and confirmed high-grade tin exactly where expected, giving the company confidence to move straight toward a JORC-compliant exploration target rather than starting from scratch. Deal terms are structured to avoid dilution before drilling begins. The acquisition is weighted toward deferred and milestone-based payments tied to future resource growth, requiring only around $1.5 million upfront in cash and scrip, funded from Noronex's existing treasury. Thompson says the company can complete due diligence, exercise the option and define an exploration target without raising capital, only tapping equity markets once it is ready to fund drilling. Tin's supply-demand fundamentals underpin the investment case. Thompson points to International Tin Association forecasts of continued deficits and roughly 25% demand growth by the mid-2030s, driven by solder use in semiconductors, AI data centres, electric vehicles and solar panels. With Indonesian producers shifting to costlier offshore dredging and no US tin production since the 1990s, he argues the timing is right for new, low-cost, shallow open-pit style supply to enter the market. Kalahari copper exposure is now fully funded by South32. Noronex's roughly one-million-hectare copper package across Namibia and Botswana is being advanced under an earn-in with South32, which is funding up to $20 million of exploration over five years to earn a 60% interest, with a further drilling program planned for around October. Thompson frames this as free-carried upside sitting alongside the new tin flagship, while Noronex retains a tight share register, with more than 50% held by its top 20 shareholders.

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