West Coast Silver Secures Ground Adjacent to Elizabeth Hill for Silver Exploration
Key Takeaways
- West Coast Silver has been granted Prospecting Licence P47/2033, securing the Elizabeth Hill West (EHW) prospect immediately adjacent to its Elizabeth Hill Mining Lease M47/342 in the Pilbara.
- Historical exploration at EHW has already returned silver intercepts including 5 m @ 5.2 g/t Ag and 19,000 ppm Cu from trenching and 1 m @ 11 g/t Ag from RC drilling, but silver was systematically undertested — only 7 of 521 historical drill samples were analysed for silver above detection limits.
- Elizabeth Hill itself produced 1.2 Moz of silver from just 16,830 t of ore at a head grade of 2,194 g/t Ag, making it one of Australia's highest-grade historical silver producers, and EHW sits along the same ultramafic-granite contact system.
- WCE holds 70% of the new tenement through subsidiary Crest Silver Pty Ltd, with the remaining 30% held by GreenTech Metals (ASX: GRE) subsidiary GreenTech Holdings Pty Ltd.
- The company has outlined a three-phase exploration programme — data consolidation, geophysical target definition, and first-pass scout drilling — to systematically evaluate EHW's silver potential for the first time.
WCE secures new silver ground directly adjacent to Elizabeth Hill
West Coast Silver has been granted Prospecting Licence P47/2033, adding the Elizabeth Hill West (EHW) Prospect immediately adjacent to its Elizabeth Hill Mining Lease M47/342 in Western Australia’s Pilbara region. The tenement is held 70% by Crest Silver Pty Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of West Coast Silver, and 30% by GreenTech Holdings Pty Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of GreenTech Metals (ASX: GRE).
The grant fills what the company describes as a longstanding gap in its landholding directly west of the mine lease. EHW adds a priority near-mine silver exploration target to the pipeline, with historical mineralisation already identified within 1 km of the Elizabeth Hill silver mine.
CEO Sergei Smolonogov
“I am pleased to announce the addition of tenement P47/2033, hosting the Elizabeth Hill West Prospect, to West Coast’s comprehensive Pilbara tenement portfolio. The tenement has been a longstanding missing piece of known silver anomalism and base metal mineralisation adjoining the Elizabeth Hill Mining Lease and adds near-mine exploration potential around the existing Elizabeth Hill Silver Project. Using valuable historical exploration datasets and the geological and structural understanding we have developed at Elizabeth Hill, West Coast has an exceptional foundation to reassess the area. Much of the earlier work was focused on nickel, copper and platinum group elements, providing an opportunity to undertake a more systematic silver-focused evaluation of the prospect.
Our next steps at Elizabeth Hill West are to consolidate and validate the historical data, conduct further field work, and undertake geophysical, structural, geological and geochemical interpretation, to define priority targets for potential future drilling.”
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What historical exploration found at Elizabeth Hill West
EHW is not a conceptual greenfields play. Historical exploration programs have already demonstrated silver and associated mineralisation across the prospect area. Importantly, all results below are from prior operators — this is not new WCE drilling.
Key historical results include:
- Historical trenching at Trench C52 returned 5 m @ 5.2 g/t Ag, 19,000 ppm Cu and 220 ppb Pd along the ultramafic-granite contact (East Coast Minerals, 1997)
- RC drill hole EHRC11 returned 1 m @ 11 g/t Ag from 65 m downhole within ultramafics
- Trench C56 returned 3 m @ 5 g/t Ag and 1,177 ppb Pd
- Only 7 of 521 historical drill samples analysed for silver returned results above detection limits, confirming silver potential remains systematically undertested
- Coherent surface silver anomalies have been identified along the ultramafic-granite contact, spatially coincident with major fault structures
Why silver was overlooked
Historical operators — Agip (1986) and East Coast Minerals (1997 to 2007) — were predominantly targeting nickel, copper, and platinum group element (PGE) mineralisation. Silver was frequently not analysed in drill holes from these programs. This created a systematic gap in the dataset that WCE intends to address through a focused silver exploration program.
What is a Prospecting Licence, and why does near-mine tenure matter?
A Prospecting Licence is an early-stage ground holding that permits exploration activity. It does not confer mining or development rights. For exploration companies, tenure directly adjacent to a granted mine lease carries strategic weight: it sits within an established geological context, reduces discovery risk compared to greenfields ground, and opens the possibility of identifying extensions to known mineralisation.
Elizabeth Hill itself is described by the company as one of Australia’s highest-grade silver projects based on historical production grades, having produced 1.2 Moz of silver from just 16,830 t of ore at a head grade of 2,194 g/t Ag before mining ceased in 2000 due to low silver prices of approximately US$5/oz. EHW lies along the same geological contact system as the mine, sitting at the boundary between the Munni Munni Intrusion and the Cherratta Granitoid Complex.
Resource extension drilling at Elizabeth Hill has already begun demonstrating the depth and lateral scale of the mineralised system, with intercepts extending well beyond the boundaries of the current resource envelope and reinforcing the case for near-mine exploration.
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WCE’s three-phase exploration plan for Elizabeth Hill West
West Coast Silver proposes to advance EHW through a staged exploration workflow designed to progressively refine and test the highest-priority silver targets. Subject to the outcomes of each phase, the programme is intended to progress toward first-pass scout drilling.
High-grade silver extensions tested by WCE’s active drilling program at the main Elizabeth Hill deposit provide the geological framework that informs target selection and drill orientation planning for the adjacent EHW ground.
| Phase | Workflow Description | Key Activities |
|---|---|---|
| Phase 1 | Consolidate / Validate Data & Targets | Detailed compilation and 3D interpretation of historical drilling, trenching, geochemistry and geophysics; reassess historical drilling for silver potential, particularly holes and intervals not historically assayed for Ag; field mapping, geological validation and targeted surface sampling across principal structural and geochemical trends |
| Phase 2 | Define Drill Targets | Targeted IP and/or other appropriate geophysical work (CSAMT, Gravity, EM) across priority structural corridors and ultramafic-granite contacts; integrate geochemistry, historical drilling and geophysics to rank discrete silver targets and determine target geometry and potential drill orientations |
| Phase 3 | Test EHW | Assess results of target-definition work; design and undertake first-pass scout drilling (aircore and/or RC) to test highest-ranked Elizabeth Hill West targets |
Strengthening the broader exploration pipeline
EHW forms part of WCE’s broader near-mine exploration strategy across its 180 km² Pilbara land package. The company is advancing multiple near-mine and regional targets around Elizabeth Hill, as illustrated in the regional prospects map, with the project located approximately 12 km from Artemis Resources’ Radio Hill processing facility. The addition of EHW secures prospective ground immediately west of the mine lease and adds another priority target to the company’s wider search for Elizabeth Hill-style mineralisation.
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