Daily Brief Australia: Barton Gold Holdings and more

Since our last note on 12 May, Barton has continued to aggressively develop its assets in pursuit of its ambition to produce 150koz gold per year in a two-stage ‘hub and spoke’ model, leveraging its Central Gawler Mill (CGM) and a new future Tunkillia mill. To this end, it has a) continued extensive drilling at Tarcoola-Tolmer, b) acquired the Wudinna prospect for a likely consideration of A$7.5m, or A$15/oz (plus a further potential A$7.5m if it goes into production), c) completed a A$3.0m placing to fund reserve conversion upgrade drilling at Tunkillia as well as a JORC resource upgrade at Tarcoola and d) announced two resource upgrades at its Challenger mine adjacent to the CGM to increase its resource to over 300koz, including 194koz at 3.2g/t Au on existing open pit and underground development. Consequently, Barton has now commenced a definitive feasibility study on ‘Stage 1’ production at the CGM as well as resource upgrade drilling at Tunkillia’s ‘Starter Pits’ and the necessary baseline water monitoring programme to support a mining licence application in late CY26. As a result, its market capitalisation has increased from A$49m in January to A$282m now, and it has been accepted for inclusion into the S&P Dow Jones ASX All Ordinaries Index of the 500 largest companies in Australia.