In September 2021 Red Hill Minerals completed the sale of its 40% interest in the Red Hill Iron Ore Joint Venture (RHIOJV) and the RHIOJV tenements but retains 100% of the rights to all non-ferrous minerals on the RHIOJV tenement package.
The RHIOJV tenements cover a 1,600 square kilometre contiguous package, located adjacent to the western margin of the Hamersley Basin. The region is considered under-explored for gold and base metals. The south-west boundary of the project is approximately 8km from the Paulsens gold mine, acquired by Black Cat Syndicate (ASX: BC8) from Northern Star (ASX: NST) (1) in 2022, and re-commenced production in December 2024 (2).
The project area lies along the western margin of the Hamersley Basin. It is dominated by the Proterozoic Ashburton Basin consisting of the sedimentary succession belonging to the Mt Minnie Beds, the Ashburton Formation, and the volcano - sedimentary successions comprising the lower Wyloo Group which unconformably overlies the Hamersley Basin sequences.
The area has potential for economic concentrations of gold and base metals. The lower Wyloo Group and the contact zone between the Ashburton and Hamersley Basins comprise the Paraburdoo Hinge Zone. This Zone contains numerous base metal occurrences in the Ashburton Basin, some of which is associated with the deep-seated, mantle-tapping faulting associated with the Nanjilgardy Fault system. Gold and base metal exploration has been conducted in the area since late last century resulting in the discovery and extraction of small scattered occurrences of high-grade copper near Red Hill and Rundle Hill, and lead from near Urandy Bore.
It is believed these deep-seated faults/splays transect the project area as identified from Red Hill Minerals interpretation work and GSWA datasets.
More recently (~1970 - 2000), reconnaissance exploration for gold and battery metals over the lower Wyloo Group in this area has been carried out by:
During the last 20 years (4) the tenements have been the subject of the RHIOJV and substantial exploration and development work has been undertaken by the RHIOJV primarily focused on iron ore. Today, the Company monitors and assesses opportunities within its land holding for critical minerals which has provided Red Hill Minerals with a significant body of information on potential precious and base metal occurrences and targets.
Red Hill Minerals considers this area to have potential to contain significant gold and base metal mineralisation and a promising suite of targets has been outlined by Red Hill Minerals and exploratory drilling programmes are being developed. Key targets identified at the West Pilbara Project include: