WPG collapsed in 2018 due to cashflow issues at its Challenger gold mine in South Australia, but the pair is hoping for bigger and better things with Eastern Metals, which has secured its two "prized" flagship projects from Wesfarmers for A$610,000 and the offer of a royalty.
Wesfarmers secured them via the takeover of Kidman Resources, but deemed them non-core compared with Kidman's Mt Holland lithium project and initiated a sales process last year.
Seizing the initiative, Duffin and Rossiter successfully win the bidding for the Browns Reef zinc-lead-silver deposit in NSW's Cobar Basin, and Home of Bullion copper-dominated massive sulphide resource at Barrow Creek, in the NT's Arunta region.
Home of Bullion has a resource of 2.5 million tonnes grading 1.8% copper, 2% zinc, 36 grams per tonne silver, 1.2% lead and 0.14gpt gold, and it remains open, and there are base metal prospects in the wider area, as well as lithium potential at Prospect D.
Home of Bullion is a high-grade volcanogenic massive sulphide style deposit developed in two main
lodes, and the company suspects the 2km-long Prospect D may also be a VMS orebody given the presence of copper and nickel sulphides, potentially indicative of a cluster of deposits.
Kidman last completed deep diamond Home of Bullion drilling in 2013 to test the lodes to at least 500-600m below surface.
Prospect D remains untested at depth, and contains a near surface oxide zone, Prospect DA. The lithium potential is completely untested and is based on similarities between the existence of pegmatite dykes elsewhere within the Arunta Complex.
Eastern aims to expand Home of Bullion with drilling, and further test Prospect D, while reviewing regional prospects such as Redback, Anvil and Tin Can Camp.
The zinc-dominated Browns Reef in the Cobar region has an exploration target of 27-37Mt grading 1.3-1.4% zinc, 0.6-0.7% lead, 9-10gpt silver and 0.2-0.3% copper.
Browns Reef was mined for gold in the 1930s and has been subjected to polymetallic exploration since the 1970s.
The central deposit has been extensively drilled, but there is only limited deep drilling at the northern and southern ends of the 2.7km-long zone, despite high-grade results such as 9m averaging 5.1% zinc, 2.8% lead and 0.2% copper in the south and 7m at 5.5% zinc, 2.3% lead, 0.5% copper, 20gpt silver and 0.5gpt gold that demonstrate the system is open along strike.
The company believes Browns Reef could be similar to the New Cobar and CSA base and precious metal systems at Cobar.
Eastern has also secured the nearby Tara and Bothrooney tenements that have seen limited prior exploration with no notable success, but where Eastern can see potential for generating additional targets.
The company's third project is Thomson in NSW, which Eastern Metals described as "quite different", with the targets being Cobar-style basement rocks under cover.
Past drilling has returned anomalous levels of base metal values close to the source of subtle but well-defined magnetic anomalies, and the company believes the area is prospective for steeply dipping, or pipe-like, copper-gold and lead-zinc-silver deposits similar to Great Cobar and CSA, and the Endeavor lead zinc mine.
While it is the largest project at almost 1500sq.km, Thomson will see only minimal exploration spending.
Duffin and Rossiter are joined on the board by independent directors Cathy Moises and Dr Jason Berton.
Moises is a geologist and former mining investment analyst who is chair of recently listed Pacgold, while Berton has worked at mines such as Plutonic in Western Australia and Olympic Dam. His honours thesis was focussed on the geology of the Lake Cargelligo area close to Browns Reef.
The company is seeking to raise $4.5-6 million at 20c.
