Advance Metals doubles down on visible gold hits at emerging Victorian play
- Andrew Todd
- Nov 6
- 3 min read
Advance Metals (ASX: AVM) is firing up a second diamond drill rig at its Happy Valley trend in Victoria’s goldfields, to chase up recent visible gold hits at depth.
The company says Happy Valley remains open both down-plunge and along-strike at the high priority prospect within its broader Myrtleford project landholding.
The recent gold extensions struck 140m below the deepest prior hit at Happy Valley, pushing the high-grade envelope past the 500m vertical mark, with Advance confident the system remains wide open at depth.
Assays from the breakthrough hole which was littered with visible gold are due in three to four weeks, with the lab numbers set to steer the next round of step-outs.
Drilling at Happy Valley will now run flat out for the remainder of 2025, targeting grade and plunge continuity below numerous old high-grade workings.
A short hop along the company’s 13km Happy Valley trend, the second rig will also kick off maiden holes at Advance’s Queen of the Hills prospect.
Two starter holes are locked in, with follow-ups likely to hinge on early core observations and possible visible gold.
Management says the deeper gold sighting in recent drilling ties straight into a thick, continuous high-grade zone stretching from surface through historic stopes to the fresh intercept.
The company says its step-down confirms the system’s legs and justifies the extra steel on site, bankrolled by a recent $13 million placement, leaving the drill plan fully covered.
Mobilising the second drill rig at Happy Valley will allow us to rapidly test the down-plunge and along strike potential opened by the recent visible gold intercept at Happy Valley. While assays are still pending, the scale we’re starting to see justifies extending the program and commencing maiden drilling at Ǫueen of the Hills in parallel with the Happy Valley drilling.
Advance Metals Managing Director Dr Adam McKinnon
Happy Valley sits in the southeastern corner of the 418-square-kilometre Myrtleford tenure, inside the Lachlan Fold Belt that has coughed up some of Australia’s biggest gold camps.
The broader trend hosts a string of old shafts and adits, with Queen of the Hills mirroring the high-grade surface expressions seen at surrounding exploited Victorian deposits.
Advance is also actively exploring its emerging Mexican silver portfolio across the Pacific.
Fresh resampling of untested core at its Yoquivo deposit has now thrown up hits like 2.05m at 480 grams per tonne (g/t) silver equivalent from previously ignored core.
The company says resampling and drilling is proving that its Mexican deposits have plenty of legs as it seeks to more than double the current foreign estimate of 100 million ounces silver-equivalent. The company has flagged a stretch target to double that 100m ounces into a JORC compliant 200m ounces over the next 18 months with silver and gold prices both sitting near all-time highs after a historic 2025 run.
The Mexican project trio of Yoquivo, Guadalupe y Calvo and Gavilanes equally deserve the ire of the drill bit and Advance is busy firing on all cylinders on opposite sides of the globe with drill programs to be underway in both countries by next week.
With the rods soon to be spinning in both Victoria and Mexico and the lab queue growing, Advance is set for a steady stream of results to flow from now into the new year.
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