Kairos Minerals is keen to achieve its ambition of becoming a near-term, multimillion ounce gold developer as it nears a resource update for its flagship 1.4Moz Mt York gold project in Western Australia's Pilbara.

"We have ambitions to move this project and company from a well-defined resources growth story into an operating miner, which I believe will translate into shareholder value," managing director Dr Peter Turner explains.

Kairos is chaired by Simon Lill, fresh from taking De Grey Mining and its Hemi deposit, 55km away, to its A$5 billion acquisition by Northern Star Resources in 2025.

A robust scoping study on Mt York, released in November 2024, estimated pre-tax cash flows of $574 million, an NPV₅ of $410 million and a healthy IRR of 35% using a conservative gold price of A$3,500/oz – well below the current $6,600/oz.

Kairos has the advantage of a circa $30 million bank balance which sees it fully funded to a final investment decision, thanks to a recent $27 million raising and a $20 million land sale to neighbour and lithium miner PLS, with the second half of that payment expected shortly.

"To have that amount in the treasury gives us optionality and it certainly derisks our future," Turner said.

The company also recently signed a mining agreement with the Nyamal Aboriginal Corporation, allowing the grant of the Mt York mining lease application.

Growing potential

Turner was attracted to Kairos because of Mt York, which is located 100km south of Port Hedland, when the resources were less than 1 million ounces.

Turner's long experience discovering and developing gold projects around the world has given him and his exploration team the necessary geological skills to recognise that Mt York "is a big gold mineralised system that will grow significantly to its full potential".

The new resource estimate is on track for the end of the March quarter, following Kairos' biggest ever drilling program in the company's history in 2025 of about 27,000m of drilling.

Drilling has, for the first time, focused on the 1.5km extension of Mt York after striking a mineral rights agreement with PLS.

"It's such an exciting project," Turner said.

"It's over 3km of continuous mineralisation and up to 100m wide in places.

"Most of our peers have gold resources spread over multiple deposits – Mt York gold mineralisation in comparison is uniquely situated in a single geological unit that optimises within a single open pit… and we've added another 1.5km of additional mineralisation creating a 4.5km mineralised opportunity."

The company will be investigating early financing opportunities for Mt York in 2026.

Roe Hill offers golden opportunity

Kairos has a second golden string to its bow at its Roe Hills project, 100km east of Kalgoorlie in the Goldfields mining heartland.

Turner said Roe Hills had previously been viewed as a nickel project but a review of the database revealed results including 10m at 2.77g/t gold from 144m.

"The exploration manager and I have seen drill core that reminds us of what we saw when we both worked at St Ives," Turner said.

He's keen to get the drill rigs to the Terra and Caliburn prospects and deliver an initial resource for Roe Hills before year-end.

Looking ahead

Turner believes a resource boost for Mt York within months should catch investors' attention, noting Kairos currently traded around half the value of its peers on an EV/oz basis.

"Mt York is a really good deposit and we've always believed there's much more gold there," he said.

"If we do indeed get to 2Moz or above, and if our share price remains at four cents or so, then we will be the cheapest multimillion ounce gold company with an undeveloped gold project with no metallurgical complexity on the ASX, and that's where we feel that the dial will have to change.

"We're in a very strong position and we're very excited about this unique opportunity in Western Australia."