The Balagundi Gold Project is a highly prospective gold exploration asset located 15 kilometres east of Kalgoorlie, within one of Australia’s most productive gold provinces (Figure 1)

The project sits in the heart of the Eastern Goldfields, surrounded by world-class operations including the KCGM Super Pit (+70Moz Au) and Kanowna Belle (+6Moz Au), and benefits from exceptional access to infrastructure, sealed roads, skilled workforce and multiple nearby toll treatment and processing facilities.

Balagundi covers approximately 27 km² of contiguous tenure, including granted mining licences, providing a clear pathway to exploration, potential discovery and development. The project represents a rare opportunity to systematically explore a historically rich goldfield that has seen very limited modern exploration over the past 25 years, despite its proximity to Kalgoorlie and strong gold endowment. 

Strategic Location & Development Advantage

Balagundi’s location offers a compelling development advantage. The project lies within a proven toll-treating hub, significantly reducing potential capital intensity for any future mining scenario. Proximity to established processing plants allows Accelerate to focus on low-capex, fast-track discovery opportunities, consistent with the Company’s strategy of identifying gold ounces capable of near-term monetisation.

Geology & Mineralisation

The Balagundi Gold Project is located within the Norseman–Wiluna greenstone belt of the Yilgarn Craton, one of the world’s most prolific Archaean gold provinces. The project tenure hosts a sequence of porphyritic basalts, dolerite sills, sediments and felsic intrusives, a geological setting highly prospective for orogenic and intrusion-related gold systems.

Gold mineralisation at Balagundi is structurally controlled, primarily associated with north–northwest trending shear zones, tension vein arrays and stockworks, with enhanced gold deposition occurring where these structures are cross-cut by east–northeast trending faults. Balagundi lies proximal to the intersection of the Kanowna Shear and the Mount Monger Fault, two first-order regional structures interpreted to have played a critical role in fluid migration and gold deposition across the Kalgoorlie district (Figure 2).

Recent reinterpretation of historical data has identified an extensive +8 kilometre mineralised corridor of folded dolerite and basalt–sediment contacts, which forms the backbone of Accelerate’s current targeting strategy and underpins multiple high-priority drill targets across the project.

Historic drilling across the project (Figure 3) has returned significant gold intercepts, including:

• 37m @ 1.45 g/t Au from 32m in BHR042 (1999) 
•  6m @ 1.86 g/t Au from 30m in BHRC003 (1999)
• 3m @ 4.30 g/t Au from 60m in BDD1 (1987)

Recent exploration by SensOre (2021–2022) confirmed broad zones of mineralisation, with intercepts such as 34m @ 0.54 g/t Au from 96m in 21BGRC004 and 20m @ 0.22 g/t Au from 16m in 21BGRC003, supported by elevated pathfinder elements and coincident gravity anomalies. These results indicate the presence of a larger mineralised system across multiple structural corridors. 

Immediately adjacent and southeast of AX8’s Balagundi earn-in tenure, RC drilling by Great Boulder Resources (2016–2017) at the Mt Bellew trend delivered high-grade results, including:

• 24m @ 19.07 g/t Au from 0m in BGP005
• 27m @ 1.42 g/t Au from 48m in BGP0083
• 4m @ 5.64 g/t Au (incl. 2m @ 10.4 g/t Au) from 135m in BGP0081
• 15m @ 1.25 g/t Au (incl. 2m @ 5.22 g/t Au) from 17m in BGP0089

High-Grade Historic Mining

Balagundi hosts extensive historic high-grade gold workings, including the Queen of Balagundi and Mt Bellew mines, which collectively produced approximately 4,000 ounces of gold from narrow quartz veins. Historical grades are commonly reported between 5–30 g/t Au, with individual reefs up to 2.4 metres wide and mined to depths of approximately 60 metres.

The project area contains kilometres of shallow shafts, costeans and mullock dumps, numerous gold-bearing quartz veins and documented nugget fields. Despite this strong historical pedigree, large portions of the system remain untested at depth and under transported cover, providing significant discovery upside 

Drilling Commenced – Paris Gift Trend

Accelerate has commenced drilling at Balagundi, with Reverse Circulation (RC) drilling underway at the high-priority Paris Gift Trend, targeting down-dip extensions of historic high-grade workings. This program is designed to test a 250-metre strike length beneath shallow workings and to establish the continuity, geometry and controls of gold mineralisation at depth.

This RC program is being followed by Aircore (AC) drilling, targeting undercover extensions along approximately 1.2 kilometres of strike, significantly expanding exploration coverage across the broader gold system. Results from these programs will guide further RC and diamond drilling planned for 2026 .

Exploration Strategy

While historic exploration at Balagundi has been sporadic, modern systematic exploration has only recently commenced. Accelerate’s approach builds on earlier work and applies a staged, but aggressive, modern exploration strategy, including:

• Detailed structural and geological mapping
• Surface geochemistry and rock-chip sampling
• Electrical geophysics programs
• Targeted RC and AC drilling across priority corridors
• Planned deeper RC and diamond drilling to test high-grade shoots and system scale

This strategy is focused on unlocking the full potential of a historically rich but underexplored gold camp, leveraging modern exploration techniques in a tier-one jurisdiction.

Investment Rationale

Balagundi represents a standout exploration opportunity with:

• Prime location near Kalgoorlie and major gold operations
• Multiple toll treatment options enabling low-capex development pathways
• Extensive high-grade historic workings and proven gold endowment
• Minimal modern exploration over the past 25 years
• Drilling underway and a strong pipeline of targets for near-term news flow