A new junior is about to set foot in Western Australia’s gold sector with plans to develop an established project which already has a million ounce resource.

If all goes to plan, the WA-based Ballard Mining Ltd will take on Delta Lithium Ltd’s spun-out Mt Ida project, located around 80 kilometres north west of Menzies, following an initial public offering (IPO) of $20 to $30 million that will see the fledgling company list on the ASX with an opening share price of 25 cents.

As part of the demerger, eligible Delta investors will receive one Ballard share per 11.25 of their fully paid ones, thus allowing them to retain exposure to an asset that has a mining history going back to the 1980s.

Ultimately, the lithium explorer will hold either a 46 or 49 per cent stake in the new company, depending on the outcome of the IPO.

Mt Ida currently has total inferred and indicated gold resources of 10.3 million tonnes at 3.33 grams per tonne for 1.1Moz, with the geology demonstrating the presence of a large system, both at Baldock (where a resource of 930,000oz at 4.1g/t, with 402,000oz being in indicated category, has been identified) and across the tenement package.

At the moment, the project hosts six deposits on top of exploration potential along 26km of continuous shear zones.

According to Ballard, initial field work will include 35,000 metres of drilling on 18km of the Baldock Thrust, as well as a further 15,000m of holes on the 13km Ballard Fault.

In addition, a high-resolution magnetics survey across the entire prospective strike is planned for July to refine the area’s structural model, which in turn should inform exploration targeting.

Delta managing director – and soon-to-be Ballard non-executive director ‒ James Crosser said his company had been working diligently towards this outcome, with the spin-out allowing it to now fully concentrate on its WA lithium assets at Mt Ida and its Yinnetharra flagship in WA’s Upper Gascoyne, located about 120km north east of Gascoyne Junction and the host of a bonus tantalum resource.

“Momentum is crucial to a new listing and the pricing of the gold asset is compelling with significant potential to create investor returns and shareholder value,” Crosser noted.

Shortly after making this announcement during mid-May, Delta acquired Minerals 260 Ltd’s Aston lithium project, covering 15 granted exploration licences near Yinnetharra.

Following the acquisition, the company now has 3,100 sq km of exploration ground in the Gascoyne jurisdiction.

As it stands, Yinnetharra has a lithium oxide mineral resource estimate (MRE) of 21.9Mt at 1 per cent (using a 0.5 per cent cut-off grade) and 39Mt at 102 parts per million (with a cut-off of 65ppm) of tantalum oxide.

According to Delta, the Aston land presents significant potential due to its close proximity to the Jameson ore body, which so far has a lithium MRE of 0.8Mt at 1.66 per cent lithium oxide.

Before the purchase, the company had made it clear that its focus would be on developing Yinnetharra’s Jameson and Malinda deposits.

Lithium at the former is present as a coherent soil geochemistry anomaly above 150 ppm lithium oxide, and is about 600m long.

Here, drilling orientations ‒ implemented since the March 2024 quarter ‒ were chosen to intercept the regional trend of stratigraphy in a perpendicular manner.

Shortly thereafter, Delta said it had intercepted 71m at 1.3 per cent lithium oxide, including 45m at 1.8 per cent of the critical metal from 41m.

According to the company, visual logging of the RC chips indicated that spodumene was the only lithium-bearing mineral observed to date, with the remainder of the pegmatite composed of quartz, feldspar on top of minor apatite and beryl.

Meanwhile, at Malinda, lithium resources are largely present in three main pegmatites starting at the surface and going to a depth of over 300m.

Metallurgical test work at this deposit is ongoing, with initial results demonstrating the potential for a high recovery of spodumene coupled with low impurities.

In addition, the Aston deal provides access to another (approximate) 10km of strike of the Leake Springs metamorphic unit, which hosts all lithium and tantalum resources at Yinnetharra, as well as many other highly prospective mafic units across the land holding.

“Delta’s technical team will have access to over 1700 sq km of new ground and the systems our team has developed over the last two years operating in this terrane positions us perfectly to now execute systematic exploration across this new prospective ground,” Crosser added.

“This extra tenure provides immediate exploration targets with early-stage lithium-cesium-tantalum anomalies, which will be critical as we continue to advance mining studies towards feasibility with the aim of delineating reserve tonnes.”