Key Highlights

  • Broken Hill Mines has released a maiden exploration target for the Centenary zone at its Rasp Mine.
  • The target ranges from 13.2 million tonnes at 8.4% zinc equivalent to 17.1 million tonnes at 12.5% zinc equivalent.
  • The target sits outside the existing Centenary inferred resource of 4.8 million tonnes at 9.2% zinc equivalent.
  • Centenary sits about 250 metres from the Western Mineralisation orebody, offering a brownfield pathway.

Broken Hill Mines (ASX:BHM) released a maiden exploration target for the Centenary zone at its Rasp Mine in Broken Hill, New South Wales, on 9 November 2026. The company plans to include Centenary drilling in a Rasp resource update due in December.

The exploration target ranges from 13.2 million tonnes at 8.4% zinc equivalent in a low case to 17.1 million tonnes at 12.5% zinc equivalent in a high case. That implies contained metal of between 1,110 and 2,137 thousand tonnes of zinc equivalent.

Understanding an exploration target

An exploration target is not a mineral resource. It is a conceptual estimate of the possible quantity and grade of mineralisation, expressed as a range, based on limited drilling. Broken Hill Mines notes that the target is conceptual and that it is uncertain whether further drilling will lead to a resource estimate. Investors should therefore treat the figures as an indication of potential rather than a measure of what can be mined.

The target sits outside the existing Centenary inferred resource of 4.8 million tonnes at 9.2% zinc equivalent.

The geology

Centenary lies beneath the Globe-Vauxhall Shear. The company says no previous operator drilled through the shear without the drill bit deviating materially, which helps explain why fewer than 40 holes have tested the zone.

The target spans 1,600 metres of strike constrained by drilling, with more than 2,000 metres of untested strike to the north. It is based on a single lode, to be named the Plimer A Lode, with an assumed average true width of 12 metres. Modelling draws on 48 historical and recent drill holes.

The drilling behind it

The company's first campaign at Centenary returned 25.8 metres at 11.7% zinc equivalent from 415.1 metres in hole WMDD6391, including 10.9 metres at 17.3% zinc equivalent. Hole WMDD6400W1 returned 17.8 metres at 10.1% zinc equivalent from 420 metres, including 5.4 metres at 19.5% zinc equivalent, with silver grades up to about 4.4 times those in the existing resource.

Zinc-equivalent grades combine zinc, lead and silver using price and recovery assumptions, so the individual metal grades should be considered when the full data is reviewed.

The brownfield advantage

Centenary sits about 250 metres from the Western Mineralisation orebody and the operations that feed the 750,000-tonne-a-year Rasp processing plant. The company says this provides a brownfield pathway with lower Capital intensity than a standalone project, because existing access, ventilation and processing could potentially be used.

Broken Hill is one of the world's great base metals districts, and new lodes close to operating infrastructure can have outsized value compared with discoveries in remote areas.

Qualifications

The target relies on an assumed true width and a single lode interpretation. Drilling density is low, and the difficulty of drilling through the shear may slow follow-up work. Deep underground Mining also carries higher costs than shallow operations.

The Rasp operation has been the subject of a restart and growth strategy, and Centenary is one of several areas the company is assessing to lift the mine's inventory. Underground operations that already have processing plants often rely on a steady flow of new lodes to extend mine life, because the cost of maintaining infrastructure is spread over more tonnes. A larger Centenary resource could therefore improve the overall Economics of Rasp rather than standing on its own.

Next steps

Two additional exploration drives will test the northern extent of the zone, and infill drilling of the northern upper portions is planned during the 2027 financial year. That work is expected to feed the December 2026 resource update.

The December estimate will be the first opportunity to see how much of the Centenary potential can be converted into a formal resource, and at what confidence level.