Key highlights

• Lightning Minerals has outlined what it believes may be a larger tungsten system at its Warby Project.

• New gold targets were set out at the flagship Mt Turner Project in Queensland, following the September quarter report.

• This update covers early-stage risks, the path to Phase 3 drilling, and funding and partnerships.

Lightning Minerals (ASX:L1M) has outlined what it believes may be a larger tungsten system at its Warby Project, alongside new gold targets at its flagship Mt Turner Project in Queensland. The details were set out in the company's September quarter report, lodged with the ASX on 30 October.

At Warby, six rock-chip samples were collected during Phase 2, and five returned more than 1% tungsten, with a peak of 5.46%. Integrated results from 91 soil samples, 17 pan concentrates and earlier rock chips outlined a tungsten dispersion zone covering more than four square kilometres.

Pan concentrate samples returned up to 4.5% tungsten along a 13-kilometre granite contact that remains largely untested. Wolframite and scheelite, the two main tungsten minerals, were also identified in hand specimens.

Reading the early results

Rock-chip and pan concentrate samples are selective by nature. They help confirm that tungsten minerals are present and guide where to look, but they do not measure grade over a mineable width. A dispersion zone in soil indicates where tungsten has been shed from bedrock, not necessarily the size of any deposit beneath it.

Phase 3 and the path to drilling

Lightning has moved into Phase 3 infill and extension soil sampling. It sent 162 samples to ALS during the quarter, followed by another 100. Seven quartz-vein and wall-rock specimens containing tungsten minerals were sent to the University of New South Wales for petrological and mineralogical study.

The company says these results will help rank targets ahead of trenching and a maiden drilling programme planned for 2027. That sequence, from soils to trenching to drilling, is standard practice and allows a small explorer to concentrate drilling funds on the strongest targets.

Mt Turner gold targets

At Mt Turner, Western Zone soil sampling defined two new gold target areas across a five-kilometre structural corridor. The northern target includes a gold-in-soil anomaly extending more than 1,000 metres within a broader 1,400-metre multi-element footprint, open to the south and east. A southern target contains four sub-parallel gold trends of 200 to 300 metres.

These targets add to Lightning's existing prospects along the 14-kilometre Drummer Fault corridor, where Phase 2 diamond drilling began on 5 October, shortly after quarter-end.

Funding and partnerships

Lightning completed the second Tranche of an A$1.85 million Placement during the quarter and set up a collaboration with Eigenform NextMaps to assess AI-assisted geological interpretation and target ranking. The company also announced a Lachlan Fold Belt option with Kincora on 26 October, which provides funded drilling and up to A$450,000.

Partner-funded work can reduce that pressure. The Kincora arrangement sits in the Lachlan Fold Belt in New South Wales, a region known for porphyry copper-gold deposits, which broadens Lightning's portfolio beyond Queensland.

Early-stage risks

Exploration of this kind has a high failure rate. Many soil anomalies and high-grade rock chips never ultimately lead to an economic deposit, either because the mineralisation is too narrow, too low grade or too discontinuous. Lightning's planned sequence of soils, trenching and drilling is designed to reduce that risk step by step.

Why tungsten matters

Tungsten is used in cutting tools, defence applications and electronics, and China dominates global supply. Western governments have classed it as a critical mineral, and several ASX juniors are pursuing tungsten projects. That interest can help with funding, though prices and policy settings can shift.

What to watch

Upcoming items include Phase 3 soil assays from Warby, mineralogical results, drilling outcomes from the Drummer Fault and progress under the Kincora option. No mineral resource exists at Warby or Mt Turner.