Gold’s recent price performance has been nothing short of spectacular, rising 67% in CY2025 and marching 20% higher still in the opening months of CY2026.

Everyone in the industry is celebrating. But none more so than a band of junior gold companies finally gaining market recognition.

Previously ignored because their small gold deposits were of little interest at the US$1943/oz average of CY2023, they have become of real interest to investors in the current US$5150/oz (A$7300/oz) market.

Still too small to justify a standalone development, small deposits (less than 100,000oz) across WA’s gold fields are now finding pathways to production through toll treatment agreements or mine profit share deals, where the capital is stumped up by the incoming party.

In previous price periods of rising gold prices much of the revenue gain has been offset by inflationary pressures. That hasn’t happened in gold’s latest run to record levels. After all, the price is up by an amazing US$850/oz so far in CY2026 alone.

Importantly for the junior gold companies, the resultant step up of investor interest in the sector means that the equity taps have been turned on for them, with dilution minimised thanks to higher prevailing share prices.

Industry veteran Mark Cossom from gold project developer Javelin recently put some context around the change in fortunes for the gold juniors.

He said that in the lower gold price environment WA’s goldfields had plenty of very marginal deposits.

“They've been that way forever,” Cossom said.

“You look at them now, and they're actually cash cows.”

It is a feature of the junior gold companies getting into production that they intend to use the cash to build a bigger future for themselves through self-funded exploration and by acquiring new project opportunities.

In most cases, the small deposits benefitting from record gold prices have been underdone from an exploration perspective. So it could be that stepping up exploration at their existing deposits could alone deliver the bigger future.

Reach Resources’ plan to revive production at the historic Paynes Find goldfield in the south Murchison is fast taking shape, with a scoping study into the project due for release at the end of March.

The study will give investors a first insight into the likely costs and the scale of the revival of the high-grade gold field at a time when the gold price is trading at record levels setting up Reach, with its $13.1 million market cap, for a re-rating.

One thing is certain about the project – it is probably the most infrastructure-rich of all of the smaller sized gold projects looking to capitalise on gold’s record levels.

There is an airport, a roadhouse with accommodation and messing and the Great Northern Highway all within a stone’s throw of the main deposits, and a third party treatment plant 75km up the highway towards Mount Magnet.

The company has been methodical in the way it has gone about moving the project towards production with Reach chief executive Jeremy Bower running permitting and geological advancement in parallel work streams.

“We’ve already started the mine proposal process,” he said.

“We've completed flora, fauna and Aboriginal heritage – all the long lead items.

“And we've just completed metallurgical testwork, which highlighted recovery of >95%.”

Bower said incorporating results from the December quarter’s 5281m of infill and extensional drilling, due to report to market imminently, will lead to a resource update.

“The updated resource and block model then gets sent over to the engineers to complete the scoping study,” Bower said.

“So that'll put us through to the end of March, when we will be armed with all the information we need to negotiate our next steps toward production.”

Reach was recently granted new mining leases over multiple gold systems along the regionally important Primrose Fault, and immediately south of its flagship Blue Heaven deposit (681,000t at a grade of 2.8g/t for 61,300oz).

The resource is on the large end for a junior gold company.

Strata Minerals has hit the ground running at its advanced Zelica gold project in the Yundamindra district between Leonora and Laverton in the Eastern Goldfields.

The project, which is situated on a granted mining licence was acquired in October last year for cash and shares and has become Strata’s prime focus given its potential to become a cash producing operation in quick fashion for the company with a modest $7.2 million market cap.

Zelica came with a historic gold resource, which Strata is bringing up to stock exchange compliant status as well as expanding, and the project has seen a small-scale vat leaching operation by private interests in the past.

Strata reported a bunch of consistent, shallow and high-grade drill results from its maiden drilling program at Zelica late in January. Best results included 10m at 3.18g/t from 37m, 7m at 3.00g/t from 51m and 9m at 2.07g/t from 44m.

The gold mineralisation has been defined over a strike length of 1km and remains open at depth and along strike. The next round of drilling at Zelica is planned to start in March.

The exploration upside for Strata was recently expanded with the acquisition of the Zelica South project, which extends the prospective gold corridor to more than 8km – all within a 50km radius of the major mines and treatment operations for which the broader Leonora-Laverton region is known.

Strata managing director Peter Woods said the company was actively looking at picking up more ground to build its strategic footprint in the region.

He said the company was likely to report its maiden resource estimate for the project later in the year.

Woods noted that in a A$7000/oz gold market there were plenty of examples of junior companies striking 3^rd party mining deals on their deposits to generate “seriously good cashflow”, prompting a market re-rating.

He said the Zelica acquisitions put Strata on a similar pathway.

Javelin will soon be counting the cash rolling in from the development of its Eureka gold project on the doorstep of Kalgoorlie.

But it has no intention of sitting on the cash, which at record gold prices of more than A$7000/oz is set to exceed the company’s market cap ($39 million at 15c a share).

Javelin’s general manager exploration & resources Mark Cossom said rather than create a cash box, the plan is to continue with exploration at Eureka, 50km north of Kalgoorlie, and the Coogee gold/copper project, 50km to the south of Kalgoorlie, as well as possibly acquiring additional opportunities.

“We actually want to use this opportunity to build a bigger gold company,” Cossom said.

Javelin has plenty of cash in the bank to cover its exploration plans for much more than six months, by which time it will be generating cash from Eureka.

Eureka is to be mined under a 50:50 deal with MEGA Resources, with MEGA providing $25m of project financing and haulage to a third party mill for treatment.

The mine plan is to extract 700,000t of the existing Indicated Resource within the new pit design.

MEGA has also agreed to make advance payments of $250,000 a month against Javelin’s share of profits, starting the month the project generates its first revenue.

It is the sort of deal that junior companies like Javelin have been able to strike thanks to the surge in gold prices to record levels, making their gold deposits all the more attractive to develop.

The Coogee project comes with a gold resource, but Javelin has grown and is excited about the potential of new gold and copper-gold targets indicated by a review and fresh interpretation of historic exploration data.

“It’s big picture stuff, looking for new, standalone/large sized orebodies,” Cossom said.

“That's what you want, a bit of blue sky.”

GoldArc has moved to capitalise on boom time gold prices by striking mine development deals covering its existing 200,000oz gold resource base across its Leonora North and Leonora South projects.

While fast-tracking the projects into production through partnerships could generate the company cash exceeding its current market cap ($42 million at 7.3c a share), the push to get into production is not the main game for GoldArc.

Managing director Paul Stephen said GoldArc’s plan is to deploy the cash generated from the 200,000oz resource base to fund an aggressive exploration for a major-scale orebody.

The company’s Leonora project area has more than 75km of underexplored prospective strike in the premier gold region.

Rather than chase down the big-time potential of its ground, Stephen said GoldArc could have decided to “throw a heap of money and time at those existing resources to grow them by 30% or 50%”.

“But that doesn’t really move the needle,” he added.

Using cash from GoldArc’s two mine development agreements for a belt-scale exploration effort could also be seen as insurance against any gold price weakness.

“The only way I can protect our shareholders from a downturn in the gold price is with a discovery because, hey, you find … plus a million ounces of gold, it doesn't matter whether the gold price is $3000/oz or $8000/oz, it's worth a lot of money,” Stephen said.

GoldArc’s hunt for a big discovery is being led by its executive technical director Ziggy Lubieniecki.

The veteran geologist is best known for the 6.6Moz Gruyere gold discovery on WA’s previously overlooked Yamarna greenstone belt.

There’s no guarantee of exploration success in the hunt for a major discovery …

“But you don't have success without putting holes in the ground,” Stephen said.

“And we've definitely got the right guy targeting where those holes will go.”