Great Western Mining (GWMO ) has signed a contract with Major Drilling America, Inc. to undertake a drilling campaign at its Defender-Pine Crow tungsten pProject in Mineral County, Nevada.
Defender-Pine Crow is the company's primary focus for the coming months, following the release of highly encouraging assay results from a machine-cut channel sampling programme in January 2026.
The upcoming reverse circulation drilling programme, planned for approximately 7,000 feet, is designed to support progress towards a maiden resource estimate at Defender-Pine Crow, targeted for the fourth quarter of 2026.
The programme will also test the scale and continuity of the mineralised system between Defender and Pine Crow, including its potential relationship to the broader copper and tungsten mineralised trend extending towards the M2 project, located more than three kilometres to the southwest.
Groundworks are scheduled to commence in May 2026 to prepare drill pads, with drilling by Major Drilling America expected to begin in July 2026.
Major Drilling America, based in Salt Lake City, Utah, is part of Major Drilling Group International Inc., a leading provider of specialised drilling services to the global mining industry, with operations across North America, South America, Australia, Asia, Africa and Europe.
"Securing a drilling contractor ensures sustained momentum for our active exploration programme at Defender-Pine Crow as we work towards delineating a maiden tungsten mineral resource estimate by the end of 2026,” said Great Western’s chief executive Ed Loye.
"While drilling is a key component of this programme, we are progressing multiple workstreams in parallel. We are currently analysing detailed geological mapping and geophysical survey data collected in recent weeks to better understand the mineralised trend between Defender and the Company's existing mineral resource estimate at M2. The results of this work will be reported in due course as will results from further assay results from further channel sampling, which will be incorporated into our evolving exploration model. Overall, activity at Defender-Pine Crow is accelerating at a pleasing rate, and we look forward to updating the market as this emerging tungsten discovery continues to develop."
View from Vox
Great Western’s share price has just about doubled in the past few weeks, and is now trading at around 2.9p. The momentum comes in the context of the Iran war, and as the market begins to wake up to the significant tungsten opportunity on offer at Defender-Pine Crow. The tungsten price has been very strong, and all companies with tungsten have been attracting interest. It’s a good time to be drilling.