Not too many ASX-listed juniors can boast a healthy bank balance and the payment of dividends to their shareholders while achieving exploration success.
But this is exactly what the Western Australian-based Red Hill Minerals Ltd did in the second half of 2024, as highlighted in its recent financial report.
As of December 31, the company’s cash balance was $64.04 million (compared with $22.45 million the previous June) ‒ this increase was thanks primarily to the final payment of the $200 million it received for the sale of its 40 per cent stake in its namesake iron ore joint venture, which makes up part of Mineral Resources Ltd’s Onslow iron ore project.
This meant during the half year, Red Hill was able to pay a special dividend of $1.50 per share fully franked at 25 per cent and one of $0.30/share (also fully franked) at 25 per cent, with the latter being issued at the end of November.
Meanwhile, first-pass RC drilling and concept testing of multiple targets was continuing at its 1600 square kilometre West Pilbara gold and base metals project, which sits south of the iron ore-producing hub of Pannawonica.
Here, some 28 drill holes were completed for 5,538 metres at Barkley Gold, Kens Bore Gold, S-Bend/Elwood, Bloodwood and Dereks Bore.
Located proximal to the major northwest-trending Deepdale Fault which separates the stratigraphy of the Hamersley and Ashburton basins, Barkly returned a number of encouraging yellow metal assays, including 2 metres at 2.7 grams/tonne from 92m, 2m at 4.3g/t (79m), 1m at 3g/t (87m), 1m at 2g/t (82m), 2m at 4g/t (134m), 1m at 1.2gt (124m) and 2m at 1g/t (151m).
At Kens Bore Gold, mineralisation was interpreted to occur at the unconformity contact between sediments of the Mt McGrath Formation and Cheela Springs Basalt.
In this instance, 500m of mineralised material along the strike of an existing prospector’s pit was targeted.
This pit previously returned rock chips grading up to 224g/t, along with anomalous gold drill intercepts.
On top of this, the fieldwork revealed 2m at 3.5 per cent copper (starting at 260m).
According to Red Hill, previous drilling had indicated that the mineralisation was constrained to the unconformity and remained open underneath alluvial cover towards the south and east.
Another yellow metal target, Bloodwood, was subjected to four drill holes for 644m, where the drilling followed a (plus) 20 parts per billion gold in a soil anomaly located above an area that was subjected to an initial RAB field program completed back in 2008.
This earlier field work intersected 5m at 0.3g/t from 15m.
Additionally, the best results encountered were 4m at 0.3g/t (8m), 2m at 0.2g/t (16m) and 1m at 0.1g/t (21m).
In terms of other base metals, at Elwood ‒ located approximately 2km northwest of S-Bend and covering 6.2km of prospective faulted contacts between the Duck Creek Dolomite and June Hill Volcanics ‒ the rig returned a zinc intercept of 6m at 2 per cent (93m), including 1m at 7.5 per cent (94m).
Red Hill said assays from its West Pilbara project continued to demonstrate widespread gold and base metal mineralisation, supporting the company’s ongoing exploration in “this fertile and well-established mining region”.