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Murray Ward
Locksley Resources has moved swiftly from strategy to execution at its enormous 1000-square-kilometre Greater Tottenham copper-gold district in the Cobar region of New South Wales, kicking off an integrated technical program designed to fast-track a 15,500-metre drilling campaign, following a strategic pivot away from its US assets.
Locksley has now established a local operations base at Tottenham to serve as a hub for core processing, sampling and logistics. A key part of the new program involves a deep dive into the project’s history, with the geos systematically reviewing historical diamond core from more than 70 historical holes drilled over several decades to sharpen drill targeting.
Metallurgical sampling has also begun, using fresh sulphide material collected from historical drill core at its Carolina prospect. At the same time, the company is finalising a drill rig contract and progressing access arrangements with local landholders so the drill rods can start turning.
Greater Tottenham already packs an impressive punch, led by an existing resource at the Tottenham prospect of 9.86 million tonnes (Mt) grading 0.73 per cent copper, 0.22g/t gold and 2g/t silver. Locksley expanded its portfolio just days ago by securing an option on the nearby Iron Duke project, adding a historical resource to its inventory of 1.3 Mt at one per cent copper and 0.6g/t gold.
‘Locksley has moved quickly from strategy to execution at Greater Tottenham.’
Locksley Resources chairman Bevan Tarrett
The company’s impressive work rate is all pushing towards the main event: getting the drill bit into the ground. At Iron Duke, the company says permitting with the NSW Mines Department is well advanced for an initial 5500-metre program designed from 28 drill pads. The drilling will test a 100m-150m gap in the known mineralisation and probe for extensions.
Locksley Resources chairman Bevan Tarratt said: “Locksley has moved quickly at Greater Tottenham. The core facility is working, historical core is being re-logged, metallurgical samples are being collected and drill planning is advancing across our priority areas.”
Notably, Iron Duke features a history of high-grade results. Previous rock chip sampling returned values up to a spectacular 26.1 per cent copper and drilling delivered intercepts including 13m at 1.56 per cent copper and 4.48 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from just 37m.
At the same time, the company is designing a bigger 10,000-metre drill program for its Carolina and Mount Royal-Orange Plains prospects to test sparsely drilled areas and chase extensions to known high-grade mineralisation. Additionally, the company is finalising an independent mineral resource estimate for Tottenham and Iron Duke, which it says will provide a geological baseline for future resource growth drilling.
The move comes just two months after the company made the savvy call to halt exploration at its US critical minerals portfolio and redirect its firepower towards its Australian assets. In August, Locksley ceased all fieldwork at its Mojave project in California following a strategic review, a decision influenced by a more than 57 per cent collapse in antimony prices from their 2025 peak and a lack of project scale.
With its focus now squarely on home soil, the company appears to be going all-in on a sprawling 1000-square-kilometre project brimming with untapped potential. The ground sits within the Girilambone Basin of the resource-rich Lachlan Fold Belt, a region that hosts some of NSW’s most significant copper and gold operations, including the Cobar mining district and the Tritton and Mineral Hill mines.
After trading the uncertainty of early-stage US exploration for a district-scale Australian copper play, Locksley now appears to have a clear path forward. With an operations base up and running, historical data being mined for new insights and a major drilling campaign on the horizon, the company’s focus looks to have well and truly shifted from boardroom strategy to the core shed.
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