Au Gold to Drill Havelock High Grade Gold and Antimony Project – Richard Mills

2026.07.21

Au Gold Corp (TSXV:AUGC) last week updated investors on exploration activities at its Havelock Gold-Antimony Project in Victoria, Australia.

According to the Vancouver-based company:

• Drill targeting is now underway including discussions with drill contractors.
• 144 rock samples have been collected at a range of targets driven by follow up from recent orientation sampling, historical soil geochemistry and reconstruction of historical workings.
• Reconstruction of historical workings on the Shaw-McFarlane Trend (SMT) is complete and providing key information for drill targeting.
• Approximately 1,000 soil samples are being collected and expected to be completed mid-July.

“As we conclude our surface sampling programs and shift towards diamond drilling, the next phase of work at Havelock is being carefully crafted to maximize our chances of success. The historic reconstructive work on the SMT has been extremely successful and is providing critical insights into the locations of the highest potential targets for drilling along the 9 km SMT,” Au Gold’s CEO Marc Blythe stated in the July 14 news release.

Rock & soil sampling

During June, the team carried out an intensive three-week sampling program focusing primarily on targets identified from the recent orientation sampling campaign, in conjunction with newly identified areas of historical soil and/or rock geochemical responses from both the Havelock southern and northern claim blocks (SMT southern extension and Sydenham) described in the May 21 news release.

Au Gold identifies additional gold targets from early exploration results at its Havelock Gold-Antimony Project, Victoria, Australia – Richard Mills

The orientation sampling carried out in March provided key insights into the different styles of gold mineralization at Havelock, allowing the team to efficiently review and rank multiple targets optimizing discovery potential. Numerous targets sampled in June comprised in-situ vein exposures across measured widths and locally derived float samples proximal to hard rock sources. Assay results from this sampling are anticipated in August.

Aside from potential anomalies generated by the current soil sampling program, AUGC does not envisage significant additional surface rock sampling at Havelock. The two recent surface sampling campaigns are considered sufficient for the first-phase diamond drill targeting peripheral to the main SMT reef line. The approximately 1,000 soil samples are being collected in strategic parts of the property supplementing broadly spaced historical gold-in-soil anomalies generated by prior operators.

Historical data set review

The reconstructive work carried out by Clive Willman and Associates along the SMT is now complete. This work has provided a stunning level of detail allowing AUGC to strategically design focused diamond drilling beneath the historical workings with a high degree of confidence given the absence of surficial clues. 

Drill targeting is also being designed for parallel and oblique structures west of the SMT reef line including Harvey’s Reef, Lund’s Reef and Ant Reef. AUGC anticipates the identification of additional drill targets once the rock sample results from the most recent program are received and interpreted.

Although the company has largely completed its review of historical data, some review work continues, specifically the northern tenement block where a number of anomalous gold samples were collected from rocks by a prior operator. As previously announced, these anomalous samples comprise two trends: Sydenham Central and Sydenham East.

Prospecting at Sydenham East has downgraded the prospect and no further work is planned. The Sydenham Central target is still being evaluated.

Next steps

AUGC will shortly complete its phase 2 work program at Havelock, comprising the collection of approximately 1,000 soil samples in strategic parts of the property and a further 144 rock samples.  Follow up may be required for anomalous results received.

The focus has now shifted to diamond drill target selection and ranking. Discussions with private landowners are continuing and the company has made several presentations to the local community. AUGC has also commenced discussions with diamond drilling contractors.

AUGC’s planned diamond drill program, which is expected to commence in Q3, will constitute the first modern drill program on the SMT.

Havelock Gold-Antimony Project

Au Gold’s Havelock Gold-Antimony Project is in the Victorian goldfields near Maryborough, roughly halfway between Bendigo and Ballarat, and about 90 minutes’ drive from Melbourne, Australia. Paved highways and roads along with gravel tracks provide year-round access. Land ownership is a combination of Crown land and private property.

Havelock includes two large-scale (>10 kilometers combined) structural gold-bearing trends with multiple undrilled targets.

At the Shaw-McFarlane Trend, targets include the McFarlane Shaft and McFarlane Dam, both situated in the central portion of the 9-km trend and are 150 meters apart.

The McFarlane Shaft contains gold/antimony quartz reef mineralization with historical high-grade production. Highlights:

• Never drill-tested
• Mined to 122m depth
• Historic production grades 10 ounces gold per ton (avg. 22.5 g/t) 
• Mining stopped due to dewatering issues and separating gold from stibnite 
• 6 tons of stibnite (antimony sulfide) recovered from the dumps

At the McFarlane Dam, coarse gold was recovered near surface. Highlights:

• Never drill-tested
• Excavated in 2010 
• 514 ounces of gold recovered, including 23 kg of reef quartz 
• Potentially represents the top of an in-situ high-grade gold-bearing quartz reef

At the Leviathan-Mariner’s Trend, highlights include:

• Covers 3 km of historical workings 
• In 2021, the previous operator completed an 8-hole diamond drill program along a 270m portion of the trend.  The program returned significant results from 4 of the 8 drill holes, justifying further work

AOTH analysis

In talking with me on Monday, July 20, CEO Marc Blythe highlighted the importance of reconstructing the historical workings on the Shaw-McFarlane Trend.

“That tells you not just there was good grades or good thicknesses of mineralization in these old mines, but exactly where. So, then you can work back from there to, okay, we need to be on this piece of property on surface and we need to drill holes down here underneath these workings to be right under the trend of that mineralization. So, it’s super helpful for us on the drill planning side of things.”

From the April 22 news release announcing the hiring of Clive Willman & Associates:

Portions of the SMT have been farmed, hiding or destroying geological evidence. While some of the larger historical mine dumps are preserved along the SMT, the extent of the workings can only be established from detailed historic records. Clive has successfully reconstructed historic workings on other projects by identifying, reviewing and collating historic data from a range of sources, including microfilm, archived newspapers and company records.

Output from Mr. Willman’s work is expected to allow the generation of cross-sections, long sections and three-dimensional representations of the historic workings along SMT. It is likely that detailed plans and sections were created during mining in the late 1800’s, however with the passage of time, these documents have been lost.

AUGC plans to use these reconstructed records to guide its upcoming drill program on targets that were documented as historically productive and along strategic portions of the SMT. 

“Some of the old historical mines, when you get into the details of them, there’s areas that have greater vein thicknesses than we had thought. And higher or more significant production grades than what we had imagined. We’ve probably got more targets than we thought we had,” Blythe said, adding:

“It’s not super-complicated for drilling. You get down underneath all these old workings.”

While premature to reveal drill campaign details, Blythe said he’d like “the program to comprise 5,000 meters in 30-50 holes, with the holes ranging from 120 to 180 meters depth.  There are more high quality targets than we originally anticipated”.

“I want to test some of these things, test them to the point where you either have a discovery or you kill it,” he said.

Drill to thrill or kill, I like it. Shareholders can expect drill targets to be announced soon, with drilling slated to begin this quarter.

Au Gold Corp
TSXV:AUGC
2026.07.20 Share Price: Cdn$0.14
Shares Outstanding: 58.5m
Market Cap: Cdn$5.5m
AUGC website

Richard (Rick) Mills
aheadoftheherd.com

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Richard owns shares of (Au Gold TSXV:AUGC). AUGC is a paid advertiser on his site aheadoftheherd.com This article is issued on behalf of AUGC.