HAR: Two high grade gold drill programs - results in the coming weeks (some before Christmas)

Disclosure: S3 Consortium Pty Ltd (the Company) and Associated Entities own 8,959,494 HAR Shares at the time of publishing this article. The Company has been engaged by HAR to share our commentary on the progress of our Investment in HAR over time. This information is general in nature about a speculative investment and does not constitute personal advice. It does not consider your objectives, financial situation, or needs. Any forward-looking statements are uncertain and not a guaranteed outcome.

Out of all the stocks in our Portfolio, Haranga Resources (ASX:HAR) looks likely to release the most major announcements before and just after Christmas.

Timing and scheduling has conspired to see HAR running two different high grade gold drilling programs at the same time... at two different projects on two different continents.

The gold price is creeping back towards the all time highs it set back in October...

Lets see what HAR might be bringing us for Christmas:

1. Drilling has (finally) STARTED at its USA gold project in the famous California gold rush “Motherlode”:

This project has a 100% owned fully permitted and built gold processing plant and decline (a mining tunnel)...

AND it’s surrounded by DEEP mines that produced millions of ounces during the Californian gold rush between 1848 and 1855.

Drilling just started 10 days ago, and so we could start to see first results (or visuals) in the coming weeks...

Armed with these drill results, HAR will aim to convert the existing resource to a JORC compliant resource in January.

HAR’s project has a 286,000 oz foreign resource estimate (source) and data from a 2008 report shows it could actually host up to ~682,000 ounces (source).

But no one has tried drilling past 150m (like all the other mines in the region did) until HAR.

Given the substantially higher gold price since the foreign resource was calculated, there is scope for HAR to apply a lower cut off grade - supporting a much larger resource.

Below is an image of those deeper mines and where HAR is drilling relative to those:

(HAR owns the green section on the image below. HAR’s deeper drilling is where the question marks are. The red blobs are the depth of the historical gold rush mines next door to HAR.)

(Source)

2. Assay results from HAR’s (surprisingly good) gold project in Senegal are due any day now...

This was a lower priority “side project” for HAR (that we didn’t really care about at all until recently) that surprised everyone back in October by delivering some long, high grade gold intercepts from shallow drilling:

(Source)

The results were impressive enough for HAR to quickly commit to a second round of shallow drilling, which has now been completed.

(Source)

New assay results from the program are due any day now - “before the end of December”.

The first set of high grade results popped the HAR share price up from ~6c to ~20c... let's hope HAR can deliver some more big hits from Senegal this month.

Then next month, deeper RC/diamond drilling is due to start.

So HAR has two high grade gold drill programs running in parallel - and we should have multiple results and progress updates announced over the coming weeks.

Here is a recent video of HAR’s MD Peter Batten (who kinda looks like Santa Claus...) giving an update on the two assets:

(watch it here)

In October we increased our Investment in HAR because we think the company is heading into a period of drilling newsflow that could be material for the company.

In the US, HAR is the first company to drill that project in over 12 years.

And in Senegal we think it could be the early days of a larger discovery (if the next few rounds of drilling come in).

Over the next ~3 months in HAR, we have exposure to:

1. Diamond drilling on HAR’s US asset - we could see visuals in the drillcores and ultimately assay results over the coming weeks/months.
2. Drill results from HAR’s Senegal asset - this one triggered the recent re-rate from ~6c to 20c, so any strong results could start to build momentum in HAR’s share price again.

Ultimately, in the short term we think progress on the company’s gold assets will drive a re-rate in its market cap, as per our Big Bet as follows:

Our HAR Big Bet:

“HAR re-rates to a market cap greater than $200M by making new gold discoveries in California and progressing towards production or is acquired at a multiple of our initial entry price”

NOTE: our “Big Bet” is what we HOPE the ultimate success scenario looks like for this particular Investment over the long term (3+ years). There is no guarantee that our Big Bet will ever come true. There is a lot of work to be done, many risks involved, including development risk, country risk and commodity price risk - just some of which we list in our HAR Investment Memo.

Success will require a significant amount of luck. Past performance is not an indicator of future performance.

HAR is now drilling on its US asset

Below is an image of the drill rig in action in the US.

Remember, HAR is drilling deeper from inside the decline of a previously producing gold mine, which is why the drill rig is underground, to get to the deeper parts of the “Motherlode”:

(Source)

HAR’s project already has a 286,000 oz foreign resource (source) and data from a 2008 report shows it could actually host up to ~682,000 ounces. (source)

Based on this round of drilling, HAR is aiming to convert those into JORC compliant resource estimates.

HAR’s project already has ~US$90M of infrastructure on it, including a fully permitted processing plant and an underground decline (the deep tunnel used by miners to go in and extract the gold ore).

So any high grade intercepts close to the underground decline could also start to build up a potential mine restart story here (which is good given where gold prices are trading).

The mine’s processing plant was last run in 2015. Earlier this year we went to site where we were surprised (to the upside) by the condition of everything on site.

Whilst we aren’t mining engineers, we don’t think it will take much to get this project back into production if HAR finds an economic resource.

(see our HAR site visit note here)

HAR’s plan is to drill ~21 holes in total, with one of the holes to be drilled down to 350m depths.

(HAR’s ground has rarely been drilled below 150m depths).

(Source)

So over the coming weeks we will get a few confirmatory holes, into parts of the project where we expect to see gold mineralisation...

AND we will also get that deep “Hail Mary” hole going for extensions at depth - the first hole down below 150m depth:

(Source)

HAR will be following up previous hits that came back at 1.2m with average gold grades of 108g/t gold and 3.7m at 108.7g/t gold...

(source)

(on first glance, those old intercepts look thin which comes down to the type of gold HAR is chasing - thin structures that run over a few hundred metres at very high grades).

Given HAR will be doing diamond drilling, between now and assay results we could also see visuals (assuming HAR is able to intercept them).

We think anything remotely close to those very high historic grades could bring a lot more attention to HAR...

After drilling HAR is targeting a maiden JORC resource estimate for late January 2026 (source).

Depending on the size and grade of that JORC resource, the market could start to draw comparisons between HAR’s asset and another ASX listed, US gold peer - Dateline Resources.

Dateline has been in the media for its rare earth potential but its Colosseum project in California is actually a primary gold project.

Dateline’s project has a 1.1M ounce gold resource estimate and the company just started a Bankable Feasibility Study on the project. (Source)

(Remember HAR thinks it can get to ~682,000 ounces based on 2008 data alone)

In early October Dateline’s share price peaked at ~67.5c per share - up over 200x from its 12-month lows.

(Source)

The past performance is not and should not be taken as an indication of future performance. Caution should be exercised in assessing past performance. This product, like all other financial products, is subject to market forces and unpredictable events that may adversely affect future performance.

Haranga is currently capped at $52M, Dateline is currently capped at $990M.

More on HAR’s gold project in Senegal

Back in early September, HAR ran a shallow aircore drill program and hit some very decent drill results.

For example, hole #8 went from 20m at 6g/t gold to 20m at 6.54g/t gold.

HAR’s share price really started moving on that second announcement (when the initial assays were re-assayed and upgraded the first batch of results):

(Source)

The past performance is not and should not be taken as an indication of future performance. Caution should be exercised in assessing past performance. This product, like all other financial products, is subject to market forces and unpredictable events that may adversely affect future performance.

The results came as a complete surprise to us - we were mainly invested in HAR for the US asset (see our “Big Bet” above that we wrote in June) so we weren’t really paying attention to its Senegal gold project.

So this next round of drilling results (due before the end of the year) is definitely one we will watch closely.

The ultimate win for HAR here will be a “Predictive Discovery style” major gold discovery - which had a similar story arc pre-discovery.

Predictive drilled a few aircore holes with low expectations, hit high grade gold, followed it up with RC drilling and ~5 years later it’s capped at ~$1.8BN.

Predictive hit gold in shallow aircore holes and the market did nothing to its share price.

Then when the deeper holes came back with gold and a discovery was declared, Predictive's share price started running.

Predictive is the most obvious comparable success story to what a big, outsized win for HAR could look like here. No guarantees of course.

(Source)

The past performance is not and should not be taken as an indication of future performance. Caution should be exercised in assessing past performance. This product, like all other financial products, is subject to market forces and unpredictable events that may adversely affect future performance.

Right now, HAR is waiting on the results from its recently completed second phase of drilling - with the main aim being to work out how far along the project area the gold structures continue - before coming back with a deeper rig and sticking deep holes into the project early next year.

HAR expects to have results from that drilling before the end of the year.

(Source)

HAR also has a bunch of high grade gold soil anomalies trending to the southwest AND a big new batch of soil sampling with assays pending to the southeast:

(Source)

These early results could be the makings of a big discovery - or it could go nowhere.

What we do know is that often big discoveries are made when no one expects anything to happen (that’s exploration for you 🤷‍♂️).

IF HAR can find anything remotely valuable then it is also in a part of the world where it could attract attention from much larger capped peers too.

HAR’s project sits in an area with some big operating mines including projects owned by $17BN Endeavour Mining and $2.2BN Resolute Mining.

(The region has a few other gold discoveries too, so it's not in the middle of nowhere).

So a big discovery from HAR here could very easily bring with it corporate attention (if the early results haven’t already).

(Source)

What’s next for HAR?

Drilling on HAR’s US gold project 🔄

HAR is currently drilling at this project right now.

HAR then expects to have that drilling lead into a maiden JORC resource estimate on the project in January 2026. (Source)

Over the next few weeks and months we will be watching out for visuals from the diamond drillcores and then ultimately assay results.

We are also looking forward to seeing HAR complete all the dewatering works on the project so that it can access deeper parts of the decline (which is where HAR plans to drill from later in this drilling program):

(Source)

Drilling on HAR’s gold project in Senegal 🔄

Last week, HAR completed the second phase of aircore drilling on the project completing 65 holes:

(Source)

Assays from the second phase of drilling are expected this month.

The purpose of this second phase of drilling is to identify drill targets that HAR can come back and drill deeper RC/Diamond drillholes into.

HAR expects that deeper drill program to start in early 2026.

HAR also has soil samples coming from a big part of its project to the west too:

(Source)

What are the risks?

In the short term, the key risk for HAR will be “exploration risk”.

HAR is currently drilling in the USA and has drill results pending from its Senegal asset.

If either drill campaign fails to deliver extensions to known mineralisation, or fails to confirm/upgrade the historical foreign resource in the USA, the market may re-rate the stock lower.

Exploration risk

There is no guarantee that HAR’s upcoming drill programs are successful and HAR may fail to find economic gold deposits.

Source: “What could go wrong” - HAR Investment Memo 25 June 2025.

Other risks

Like any stock market investment, investing in HAR carries a multitude of risks which may affect the value of the company, some of which may not be foreseeable (this is the nature of risks).

Here we aim to identify a few more risks.

HAR’s US project is still at the exploration and early-development stage. It is possible that drilling fails to convert the existing non-JORC resource into a JORC-compliant resource of economic significance.

The company is also exposed to fluctuations in the gold price. A sustained downturn could impact the perceived value of both its US and Senegal assets, and limit HAR’s ability to secure funding on favourable terms.

As a small cap explorer, HAR remains highly reliant on capital markets to fund exploration and development. Any capital raising may dilute existing shareholders, particularly if market conditions weaken.

There are also permitting and development risks. While HAR’s US project has significant sunk capital and existing permits in place, additional mining-related permits are still required, and any delays could affect timelines.

In Senegal, political, regulatory and operating risks are higher compared to more established jurisdictions, and may impact exploration or potential future development.

Finally, as with all speculative explorers, the current share price may already factor in future upside, particularly in a rising gold market, which increases the risk of sharp volatility around drilling results.

Investors should carefully consider these risks and seek professional advice tailored to their personal circumstances before investing.

Our HAR Investment Memo:

Our Investment Memo provides a short, high-level summary of our reasons for Investing.

We use this memo to track the progress of all our Investments over time.

Click here to read our HAR Investment Memo where you will find:

• What does HAR do?
• The macro theme for HAR
• Our HAR Big Bet
• What we want to see HAR achieve
• Why we are Invested in HAR
• The key risks to our Investment Thesis
• Our Investment Plan