According to Mining News Pro - Illaara is an underexplored project 160 kilometres north-west of Kalgoorlie, containing four tenements and five target areas that include the large, 10 kilometres long gold anomaly.

Newmont’s initial interest in Illaara came from a 55-kilometre long gold-arsenic-antimony anomaly generated from regional regolith sampling by the Geological Survey of Western Australia, leading to the tenements being granted in 2016.

A change of corporate priorities created the opportunity for Dreadnought to acquire the project this month, according to the junior company.

Dreadnought, formerly Tychean Resources, will raise over $1.1 million to fund the acquisition and drilling at Ilaara, and for further exploration and diamond drilling at the Tarraji project.

The company is focused on gold exploration and resource development in the Eastern Goldfields in Western Australia and the Tanami region in the Northern Territory.

“Acquiring a project of this quality and with such potential scale is a significant achievement for Dreadnought. The drill ready Illaara Central anomaly is particularly exciting,” Dreadnought managing director Dean Tuck said.

“Illaara is a project that can be readily accessed all year round and compliments our Kimberley Tarraji-Yampi project in that Illaara can be worked during the Kimberley wet season. Dreadnought’s strategy is to progress high quality projects with genuine scale potential.”

The acquisition terms include reimbursement of external costs to date ($120,000), a 2.5 per cent net smelter royalty, assignment of any environmental liabilities and obtaining approvals for tenement transfers. The transaction is expected to complete within the next month.