Orient reveals its edge as Iltani drills deeper into North Queensland’s silver-indium system with tech, tenacity and a touch of geological swagger

They call it Orient—but there's nothing vague about the trajectory of this polymetallic system buried just inland from Atherton in North Queensland. With stacked vein geometry, responsive geophysics, and a geology team that knows exactly what it’s looking for, the project is quickly becoming a textbook case of how to progress an underexplored epithermal system into an investable resource story.

The company behind the work is Iltani Resources. Since listing in mid-2023, Iltani has pushed over 85 RC holes and multiple diamond holes into the Orient Silver-Indium Project, defining a dual-lobe system—Orient West and Orient East—that’s now being drilled out for a JORC-compliant resource due mid-year.

“We’re not just chasing tonnes. We’re zeroing in on grade,” managing director and geo-at-heart Donald Garner told attendees at the RIU Sydney Resources Round-up. “High-grade, high-recovery sulphides in structurally predictable settings—that’s what makes this work.”

Stacked veins, structural logic

Orient West features multiple stacked silver-lead-indium-zinc veins extending over 2km of strike with a 900m high-grade core, while Orient East comprises a stockwork system defined across a 500m x 500m core area.

“The mineralisation is sulphide-dominant—galena and sphalerite—so silver and indium are locked in cleanly. Based on historical test work, we’d produce a lead-silver con and a zinc-indium con,” said Donald. “Tin and antimony are in there too—stannite, boulangerite—but they’re not currently payable.”

Drill highlights from the current infill campaign at Orient West include:

• 76m @ 118.5 g/t Ag Eq from 24m (ORR070)

• 9m @ 391.9 g/t Ag Eq from 90m, including 1m @ 1,933 g/t Ag Eq (ORR068)

• Multiple intersections in excess of 400–1,000 g/t Ag Eq across multiple zones

The consistency of intercepts is helping build a 3D model where continuity, structure, and geometry are all falling into place. “It’s amenable to open-pit mining, but with high-grade material that lends itself to underground follow-up,” he added.

Seeing through the cover

If infill drilling is the short game, the long game is unfolding via helicopter. A Queensland Government grant has funded a VTEM survey across the broader Orient system, including step-out targets like Orient North, South, Undercover, and Deadman Creek. The team knows the sulphides light up on EM, and they're looking for continuity—and possibly something bigger.

“The cover is barely five metres thick in places. Historical miners never had a chance to see what’s under it. We do,” said Donald. “The VTEM data will help us chase the system beneath the shallow transport.”

In parallel, Iltani is extending the survey into the Boonmoo Sag Caldera—an untested geophysical blank spot dotted with breccia pipes and historic copper showings. “There’s every chance this could host a copper-dominant porphyry system,” Donald said. “We’ve mapped the breccia pipes; now we’ll see what’s hiding beneath.”

Model-driven, results-focused

From a technical standpoint, what’s emerging at Orient is a structurally coherent, metallurgically favourable mineral system that’s beginning to behave predictably across multiple scales—from surface geochem to core assays to EM response.

The global exploration target stands at 32–42 Mt at 110–124 g/t Ag Eq, with a high-grade subset delineated using an 80 g/t cut-off. Resource definition drilling is underway at both lobes, with results from diamond and RC holes pending.

Meanwhile, the company is tracking toward its JORC resource release in July. “We’ve gone from IPO to potential resource in under two years,” said Donald. “We’re building a real project, with real data—and a real chance of being one of Australia’s best new silver discoveries.”

Whether that holds true will depend on what the next 12 months of assays, geophysics and modelling turn up. But for now, it’s hard to ignore the momentum—especially for a metal mix squarely in the crosshairs of the energy transition.