McLaren closes major Eucla Basin campaign with strong titanium grades, readies resource update

McLaren Minerals has received final assay results from the last 137 aircore holes, bringing to a close an 11,568-metre, 663-hole drilling campaign at its wholly owned McLaren titanium project in Western Australia’s western Eucla Basin.

The additional holes added 2,210 metres of sampled one-metre intervals to the company’s database and returned a compelling length-weighted average grade of 4.27% heavy minerals (HM) with no cut-off applied, McLaren said.

Drilling results show mineralisation extending to the south-west beyond the footprint of the project’s current inferred resource, where the company reports the deposit remains open in that direction.

Standout intercepts from the south-west extension include 21 metres at 6.35% HM from surface, which contained a one-metre peak of 9.73% HM from two metres depth. Other significant holes in the extension returned 15 metres at 5.4% HM (including 7.02% HM at 12m) and 17 metres at 4.76% HM with a best one-metre of 7.56% HM.

Several of the highest grades from the final batch were near surface: one hole recorded 9 metres at 9.32% HM including a one-metre slice of 12.37% HM, while another hit 6 metres at 8.49% HM with a surface one-metre reading of 12.5% HM. The top single one-metre assay in the release was 14.15% HM.

Two variography grids, designed to test short-range continuity, gave reassuring results for grade predictability. All 20 holes in the southern grid averaged more than 5.4% HM over thick intervals of 21 to 24 metres. Highlight intercepts there included 21 metres at 6.32% HM with a one-metre peak of 11.14% HM from 18m, and 24 metres at 6.13% HM including 11.71% HM from 17m.

The 2026 drilling program was aimed at lifting confidence in an existing JORC-compliant indicated and inferred mineral resource of 529 million tonnes averaging 4.5% HM, which contains 23.7 million tonnes of in-situ heavy minerals. The work is intended to support ongoing metallurgical testwork, mine planning and a bankable feasibility study.

“It’s really good to see these final results, and they continue the consistently strong results we have reported to date from this program. In particular, it is gratifying to see the results from the south-western extension corridor outside of the Inferred Resource returning good grades. This drilling shows the Resource remains open to the southwest, giving us even more scope to increase the scale of the Resource and the project in due course.”

With the full assay set now complete, McLaren will update its geological model and produce a revised mineral resource estimate to feed into mine planning, metallurgical programs and the company’s bankable feasibility study workstreams.