Key Highlights

  • Adavale has started Reverse Circulation Drilling at the Ashes prospect in central New South Wales.
  • The programme targets gold-silver-copper veins at surface and a chargeability anomaly that may indicate a porphyry system.
  • Ashes lies about 10 kilometres east of the Northparkes copper-gold mine within the Macquarie Arc.
  • Consolidated tenure allows the company to test the prospect as a single connected system for the first time.

Adavale Resources (ASX:ADD) has started reverse circulation (RC) drilling at the Ashes prospect in central New South Wales, the company announced on 11 November 2026. The programme is designed to test gold-silver-copper veins at surface and a deeper induced polarisation (IP) anomaly that Adavale believes could indicate a porphyry copper-gold system.

Ashes lies in the Ordovician Macquarie Arc, about 10 kilometres east of the Northparkes copper-gold mine. The Macquarie Arc hosts several of Australia's best-known porphyry deposits, including Cadia and Northparkes, which is why explorers in the belt pay close attention to IP responses.

Why the tenure change matters

This is the first drilling at Ashes since Adavale acquired the southern 14 units of exploration licence EL5675 from Alkane Resources (ASX:ALK). The company also secured exploration licence EL9918 on 25 May 2026, which removed a boundary that previously split the target area between different holders.

Managing Director David Ward said the consolidated tenure meant the company could test the prospect as a single connected system for the first time. He said securing the adjacent ground from Alkane allowed Adavale to position holes around the geology and geophysical targets rather than being constrained by licence lines.

What the surface shows

Rock-chip sampling at Ashes has returned high grades from surface veins. Reported results include 10.65 grams per tonne gold, 158g/t silver and 1.98% copper, and 7.95g/t gold, 96.4g/t silver and 2.2% copper. A July 2026 sample within EL9918 returned 9.2g/t gold, 4.5g/t silver and 660 parts per million copper.

Rock chips are selective samples taken from visible mineralisation, so they show that metals are present but do not indicate average grades or widths.

The IP anomaly

The IP survey defines a chargeability anomaly of 30 millivolts per volt that lies almost entirely within EL9918, which Adavale owns outright. Chargeability measures how readily the ground holds an electrical charge, and high values can reflect disseminated sulphide minerals.

Adavale says the response may reflect disseminated sulphides associated with a deeper porphyry copper-gold system. However, chargeability can also be caused by barren pyrite or graphitic rocks, so drilling is required to establish what the anomaly represents.

Why it matters

Porphyry systems can be very large, and discoveries in the Macquarie Arc have historically supported long-life mines. For a small explorer, a confirmed porphyry signature near established infrastructure would be a significant step. At the same time, many IP targets in the region have not yielded economic deposits, and the gap between an anomaly and a resource can be wide.

The shallow veins provide a second route to value. High-grade gold-silver-copper veins may represent the upper part of a larger system or may be standalone structures, and the RC holes should begin to clarify that relationship.

Qualifications

No drilling results from the current programme have been reported. The rock-chip grades are not representative of the Volume of rock that would be mined, and the porphyry interpretation is a hypothesis at this stage.

Adavale's position also illustrates how tenure can shape exploration in mature districts. Licence boundaries drawn decades ago can often cut across geological targets, and consolidation can be a prerequisite for designing an efficient drilling pattern. The Alkane transaction and the EL9918 grant gave the company full control of the anomaly area.

Next steps

Beyond the RC programme, Adavale plans to extend magnetic surveys, soil sampling and rock-chip work into the new tenure, followed by first-pass drilling of other priority targets. A scoping study is also under way at the company's London-Victoria Gold Project, which forms part of its broader Parkes Thrust Project in the Lachlan Fold Belt.

Assays from the Ashes holes will be the first test of whether the surface grades and the IP anomaly connect to something larger at depth.