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PREMIER1 LITHIUM LTD (PLC) - Pivoting from Lithium to Promising Gold Discoveries

• Andrew Musgrave

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Gold exploration is taking centre stage at Premier1 Lithium as Managing Director Jason Froud reveals the company's strategic pivot towards promising gold targets within their Western Australian portfolio. Demerged from SensOre last year with an initial lithium focus, Premier1 has adapted to challenging market conditions by unlocking the substantial gold potential hiding within their tenements.

The spotlight falls on their Yalgoo project, where recent drilling has delivered remarkable results. A 3,000-metre RC program uncovered significant intercepts including 7 metres at 4.3 g/t gold at Carlisle and an impressive 3 metres at 30 g/t gold at Crescent South. What makes these discoveries particularly exciting is that they represent mineralisation in areas largely untouched since limited drilling in the late 1980s. The Crescent shear zone alone offers kilometres of untested strike length with proven high-grade potential.

Premier1's disciplined exploration approach combines thorough historical data analysis with modern techniques—high-resolution drone magnetics, detailed geochemical sampling, and litho-structural studies—maximising their chances of success while carefully managing capital. This methodology has already yielded dividends with the discovery of a previously unrecognised mineralised system west of Olive Queen, confirming the gold-rich nature of the broader Yalgoo area.

Looking ahead, Premier1 has secured a $180,000 co-funded drilling grant under WA's Exploration Incentive Scheme for their Mount Kersey and Central Block targets, where rock chips have returned values up to 26 g/t gold along a 2-kilometre geochemical anomaly. Their Abbots North project is also showing early promise with rock chips up to 7 g/t gold. With results pending from Abbots North, imminent drilling at Carlisle, and the EIS-supported program at Mount Kersey commencing in August, Premier1 is poised for a catalyst-rich period that could significantly enhance their growing reputation as a focused gold explorer in prime Western Australian terrains.

Andrew Musgrave Host

Welcome again to ASX Briefs, and joining me today is Jason Froud, the Managing Director of Premier1 Lithium Limited, a company that's focused on high-impact exploration across gold, copper and lithium projects, particularly within the renowned Greenstone Belts of Western Australia. The company is currently making significant strides at its Yalgoo project, demonstrating its strategic commitment to disciplined project evaluation and prudent capital deployment. Jason, thanks for joining me today and welcome to the ASX Briefs podcast. 

Jason Froud Guest

Yeah, thanks, Andrew. Good to be here and thank you for having me on ASX Briefs. 

Andrew Musgrave Host

Okay, now for listeners that may be unfamiliar with Premier1 Lithium, can you just provide a brief overview of the company? 

Jason Froud Guest

Yeah, sure. So, the company demerged from SensOre last year with an initial focus on lithium exploration. Obviously, that's a pretty tough market at the moment. We do still have lithium exploration within the portfolio, but this has largely been put on hold until the market starts to show some signs of recovery there. In the meantime, we've gone through a detailed review of what other potential there is within our exploration portfolio, and we've also rationalised some of the less prospective ground holdings that we previously had. Out of this review, I guess there were two standout gold projects that came out, that being the Yalgoo project and also Abbotts North, which is just north of Meekatharra. So, these two projects have been the focus of our exploration efforts over the last six months or so. 

Andrew Musgrave Host

Okay, and Premier1's Made in RC program at Yalgoo has delivered some impressive results. So, can you walk us through the significance of the intercepts at Carlisle and Crescent South and what they reveal about the broader mineral potential of that area? 

Jason Froud Guest

Yeah, absolutely so as you mentioned, we just finished a 3000 metre RC program, and this was designed to test both new target areas at Yalgoo as well as the strike and deep extension of the known gold mineralisation. So, I think here it's important to note that this area was last drilled in the late 1980s with some pretty standout results in those drill holes. But it's really been lost in time since the late 1980s. So, for me the most exciting result from Carlisle the holes we drilled here were testing an extension to an old hole that returned 17 metres at 1.4 grams per tonne gold. We did drill a couple of holes testing what we thought was the mineralised strike and they came back with only weak anomalism. But the hole directly to the east, hole 19, returned 7 meters at 4.3 grams from 19 meters down hole. So, this is a pretty significant intercept in itself and it was also a lot further up the hole than what we expected. I guess what's exciting about this hole is that there was no other drilling in the vicinity here and it opens up a whole new structural corridor for us. We do need to better understand the structural setting as it's not quite what we expected. So, we're doing at the moment some more detailed work, both desktop and in the field, and then we'll get back out there and we'll put some more holes into to fully test the potential at Carlisle.

For me this was a, it was a somewhat unexpected result but it but nonetheless it's a very highly compelling target. At Crescent South we were testing the continuation of the north-south shear zone that hosts the Crescent mineralisation. So, this mineralisation goes across the tenement boundary into Spartan's Ground to the north. There are quite a number of holes from the 1980s into Crescent that intersected some very good gold mineralisation, but they never tested any of that mineralisation potential outside of the old workings. So, the Crescent shear zone continues for several kilometres to the south and, as I said, this has never been drilled, even though it's an obviously mineralised structure. So, hitting three metres at 30 grams per tonne here is very significant and it validates the structural model. I think this shows that the Crescent Shear is also a very compelling target and, as I said, we've got kilometres of strike to test to the south. 

Andrew Musgrave Host

Okay, and one of the standout outcomes was the identification of a previously unrecognised mineralised system west of Olive Queen. What does this mean for your exploration model and how might this influence your drilling priorities moving forward? 

Jason Froud Guest

Yeah, absolutely so, for Olive Queen or Olive Queen West there. Look, it's very early days and we were testing, you know, essentially a conceptual target based on a structural model and the surface geochemistry, so the area had seen no drilling at all previously but we were drawn to the area given the structural and geological complexity that we were seeing. So, as I said, it was, you know, purely a conceptual target. So, in one hole we hit five metres at four sorry, at 0.4 grams per tonne with very strong pathfinder anomalism in arsenic and bismuth, and at Yalgoo, arsenic and particularly bismuth are key part finders in this area. Whilst this is not all great mineralisation, I think what it shows is that there's a lot of gold in the system at Yalgoo and, as you said, it was a previously unrecognised and untested area, untested prospect area. So, it shows that there's a lot of compelling target outside, a lot of compelling target areas outside what the old timers work. So, this gives us confidence that there's a lot more to the area than was previously recognised, either by the old timers in the early 1900s or during the drilling previously in the 1980s. 

Andrew Musgrave Host

Okay, and you've touched on the success of an integrated approach leveraging geochemical sampling, drone magnetics and litho-structural studies. So how has this multi-disciplinary strategy given Premier1 a competitive edge in targeting mineralisation? 

Jason Froud Guest

Yeah. So drilling is expensive and look, if I had the budget, I'd love to have a drill rig on site full-time at Yalgoo and I think we'd get some outstanding results there. But as a junior explorer, we just can't do that, and we need to get the absolute most out of our data before we start drilling. So, this is included going back through all the old paper records from the 1980s. It's time-consuming and tedious, but even now we're still getting gems of information from this old data. 

But the work also includes, you know, flying high-resolution geophysics so that we can cover a lot of ground at Yalgoo, and also using the existing surface geochem and infield sampling where we need it, and all of the data compilation that goes with this. Look, this is not groundbreaking work, but it certainly maximises our chances of exploration success before we commit to any drilling program. I think, as a junior explorer, we're probably a little bit unique in that we have a full internal team in place, and so we do all of this work ourselves rather than contracting it out. We keep all the IP in place and we're constantly building on this, so I think this certainly puts us in a good place for discovery. 

Andrew Musgrave Host

And you've recently secured a $180,000 co-funded drilling grant under the WA government's EIS program. So how will this funding enhance your upcoming programs at Mount Kersey and the Central Block? 

Jason Froud Guest

Yeah. So, I guess, firstly, the downside with the EIS grant is that under the conditions, we can't start spending that money until August and, to be clear, the grant is only for Mount Kersey and Central Block targets. We can't use it for drilling elsewhere. So, we're still actively continuing exploration outside of these areas. For me, you know, Mount Kersey is an outstanding target. There's been no drilling there. We've had rock chips coming back at 26 and 14 grams per tonne gold and we've got a coincident pathfinder geochem anomaly that continues across more than two kilometres and this anomaly has all the elements that we want to see. So, tellurium, which is really important bismuth, arsenic, moly and copper all present within this geochem anomaly. Unfortunately, we did not have the POW in place to drill this area when we when we completed the last program, but that's in place now. So, we're really keen to get on the ground and test the potential of Mount Kersey. So, this EIS grant and I guess the review process that goes with it supports the optimism that we have at Mount Kersey and it gives us the flexibility to drill on a relatively cheap unit cost basis. 

Andrew Musgrave Host

And beyond Yalgoo. Can you give us an insight into the company's broader asset base, including any ongoing or future work at Abbotts North or other holdings? 

Jason Froud Guest

Yeah, so, absolutely. So, Abbots North is obviously the main one here. We picked up this project for its lithium potential but, importantly, almost no work and surprisingly almost no work has been done for gold in this area. There was some very sporadic copper exploration done in the 1970s but very little else. Abbotts North is really still at a very early stage of gold exploration for us but given New Murchison's Crown Prince deposit is only a few kilometres from our ground, and we have the same geology and we're seeing the same structure in the magnetics. I think this also makes it a very compelling target. 

We did some initial reconnaissance work a few months ago and got some really encouraging rock chip results. As I said, this was a reconnaissance sampling only, but we got one, two grams along a northwest structure from Crown Prince and we also got a seven gram per tonne rock chip which was absolutely in the middle of nowhere, which we weren't expecting. So, after we completed the drilling at Yalgoo, the team returned to site at Abbott's and they've now completed a much more detailed mapping and sampling exercise up there. So those samples are now just in the lab, and we should have those results back in the near future. 
 
 So, in terms of gold potential I think Abbott's North can become a very significant part of the portfolio and, given the Caprock drilling results that's coming out from New Murchison Gold with their Crown Prince deposit now, Abbotts will become much more of a focus for us. Outside of that, we're also actively looking at a couple of acquisitions at the moment. If it's the right project at the right price, we certainly have the support, and our share register to make this happen. We are quite advanced on a couple of projects, but for the time being we just need to let that process run its course. 

Andrew Musgrave Host

And, lastly, for current and prospective shareholders, what are the key milestones that they should look out for, for the rest of 2025? And how does the company plan to sustain momentum through these upcoming phases of exploration? 

Jason Froud Guest

Yeah, absolutely. So firstly, we have the results from Abbotts North due in the very near future. There were certainly some very nice-looking rocks on the ground up there, so we'll get those results out as soon as we have them, and that's probably within the next two weeks. Next up, we'll be getting a drill rig back to Carlisle. We do have a couple of things we need to finalise before we start, but for me, Carlisle is a very easy exploration project for us to get into and I'm keen to get back there in the very short term. 

Then after that, in August, we'll be kicking off the drilling program at Mount Kersey and the Central Block target with the support, as we said, from the EIS grant. And, as I said, I think you know this is an exploration. This is an excellent exploration target, and I would have loved to have drilled this last time around if we had the opportunity. As I just mentioned, you know, in parallel we are actively looking at a couple of other projects in terms of acquisition. There's a few variables here, but if we're successful, I think one of these could potentially happen quite quickly as well. 

Andrew Musgrave Host

Okay, Jason. Well, it's been great to speak today, so thanks for your time and we look forward to the next update from Premier1 Lithium in the upcoming months. 

Jason Froud Guest

13:43

Okay, appreciate the opportunity. Thanks, Andrew. 

Andrew Musgrave Host

That concludes this episode of ASX Briefs. Don't forget to subscribe and we look forward to catching you on our next episode.