Terrain Minerals has rung the till with a combined $2.513 million capital injection, underpinned by a significant strategic investment from Gandel Metals, to turbocharge drilling at its flagship Lightning gold project in Western Australia.

The funding package comprises a $1 million placement and a $1.6 million non-renounceable rights issue, both priced at $0.004 per share. In a solid vote of confidence, the placement to Gandel was struck at a 33.33 per cent premium to the market.

The strategic investment will see Gandel subscribe for $914,000 in the placement and commit to a further $86,000 in the subsequent rights issue.

The rights issue will be offered to existing eligible security holders on a 1-for-9.85 basis, with the same $0.004 offer price and a 1-for-1 attaching unlisted option as the placement. The options will have a three-year term and are exercisable at $0.006.

With its saddlebags now full of cash, Terrain plans to plough the majority of funds into a significant 10,000-metre reverse-circulation (RC) drilling campaign at its Lightning gold prospect, in the northern part of the company’s wider Smokebush project. The Lightning prospect currently holds a maiden resource of 54,000 ounces of gold, delivered three months ago.

The drilling is designed for further resource growth, with a combination of infill and extensional drilling aimed at upgrading the prospect’s maiden mineral resource estimate from the inferred to the higher-confidence indicated category. The company is targeting an updated resource estimate in the first quarter of 2027.

The Smokebush project is located in the Yalgoo Mineral Field, 350 kilometres north of Perth, in WA’s Mid West region. The area is a well-endowed gold province, with Capricorn Metals’ Golden Range project and 29Metals’ Golden Grove mine as neighbours.

While Smokebush’s primary commodity focus is gold, Terrain’s tenure also hosts the Larins Lane gallium and rare earths prospect, which it defined from 102 air-core holes drilled across a 9km by 3km area. The company has defined a JORC-compliant exploration target over five per cent of that 27-square-kilometre footprint.

Notably, recent metallurgical studies, supported by the Minerals Research Institute of Western Australia and the WA government, have confirmed high rare earth element recoveries of up to 83 per cent from Larins Lane samples, using a readily available, lower-impact acid leach.

Terrain also has a variety of other commodity interests in WA and Queensland. These include its Lort River rare earths project, 50 km northwest of Esperance in the Albany-Fraser Belt, where early drilling confirmed high-grade clay-hosted rare earths with elevated neodymium and praseodymium (NdPr) values.

Other assets include the Carlindie gold-lithium project in WA’s Pilbara region and its 2500 square kilometre Biloela copper-gold project near Aeris Resources’ operational Cracow gold mine in Queensland, which produces an estimated 36,000 to 46,000 ounces of gold per year.

In addition to the capital raise, Terrain is proposing a 14-for-1 consolidation of its securities, which will take place after the rights issue and is subject to security holder approval. The move is a common strategy to tighten a company’s capital structure and can make a stock more attractive to a wider range of market participants.

The company has also flagged a future clean-up of unmarketable parcels valued at under $500. Management has pointed out that the rights issue allows small holders to top up to a marketable parcel, with the board noting it will look favourably on such applications through a top-up facility.

With a strategic backer on board at a premium and a clear plan to get its drill rods spinning again, Terrain is now fully funded to take the next crucial step at its Smokebush project. The market will no doubt be keeping a beady eye on the assay results from the upcoming 10,000m campaign as the company looks to build on its maiden gold resource.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@wanews.com.au