Oracle Power starts geotechnical drilling at Northern Zone
By Josh White
Date: Tuesday 28 Apr 2026
(Sharecast News) - Oracle Power said on Tuesday that geotechnical drilling had started at its Northern Zone gold project, 25 kilometres east of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia, as the company and partner Riversgold advance the asset towards a Mine Development and Closure Plan.
The AIM-traded project developer said the diamond drilling programme would provide rock strength data for pit slope design and support ongoing mine planning studies ahead of finalisation of the MDCP.
It said conversion of the Northern Zone tenement to a mining lease was well advanced and expected shortly. The company and Riversgold have previously signed a right to mine and co-operation agreement with MEGA Resources for the project, under which MEGA would provide all development and mining funding on a 50-50 profit share basis.
Chief executive Naheed Memon said the programme would provide "critical structural and rock strength data" for final pit design work.
"This small but important diamond drilling programme will acquire whole rock core in the fresh rock zones across the porphyry intrusion, the analysis of which will provide critical structural and rock strength data for pit slope stability in final pit design work for the MDCP," she said.
"The imminent Mining Lease grant and MDCP maturation, will provide long-term security of tenure for the Northern Zone Gold Project for the ultimate benefit of our shareholders and our partners in the development of Northern Zone."
Oracle said four diamond drill holes, each to depths of about 100 to 150 metres below surface, were planned based on MEGA's indicative pit layout and the project's lithological setting.
The holes are intended to target key geotechnical data requirements.
It said the core would be photographed, structurally logged and sampled by Xirlatem in Kalgoorlie, with selected whole-core samples sent to Perth for laboratory testing.
Tests would include unconfined compressive strength and direct shear analysis, with the results used to support a stable and optimised pit design.
Northern Zone is hosted within a Tonalite-Trondhjemite porphyry intrusion, with high background gold and horizontal gold mineralised units.
The project sits within the Canon Shear or fault zone, and Oracle said further drilling would be required to define the limits of mineralisation identified to date.
Oracle said previous drilling had been perpendicular to the horizontal gold mineralisation, while the absence of water in drilling to 60 metres made the intrusion suitable for the drilling techniques used so far.
At 1306 BST, shares in Oracle Power were up 11.11% at 0.06p.
Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.
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