K2 Gold has started its 2026 exploration and drilling programme at its wholly owned Mojave Project in Inyo County, California, US.
The company aims to drill a minimum of 5,650m, initially targeting the Dragonfly Zone, following federal approval of its environmental plan.
The approved plan of operations and environmental impact statement (EIS) allow up to approximately 14,000m of drilling along the project’s Eastern Target Area, which comprises a mineralised corridor stretching more than 4km.
Drilling at Dragonfly will focus on structures where K2 Gold previously reported 86.9m at four grams per tonne (g/t) gold, including a higher-grade interval of 24.4m at 10.9g/t.
The company has allocated around 3,000m to this zone to evaluate the reach of high-grade gold along strike and in parallel structures.
Further drilling is planned at the Newmont Zone, which previously produced results of 41.15m at 1.64g/t gold.
An initial 2,650m of drilling will test the southern extension and continuity of gold mineralisation near the Discovery Outcrop.
Both the Dragonfly and Newmont zones have been explored in earlier campaigns, with K2 conducting reverse circulation drilling as recently as 2020.
Surface exploration at additional targets including Flores, Gold Valley and Stega is also being conducted.
At Flores, channel sampling returned 3.78g/t gold over 43m, and follow-up work has uncovered multiple gold-bearing rock samples.
Gold Valley has seen surface samples up to 375g/t gold, while the Stega Zone has delivered copper values up to 14.2% and gold values up to 12.68g/t in rock samples.
The company has set aside $9.8m (C$13.89m) for the 2026 Mojave exploration budget.
K2 Gold president and CEO Anthony Margarit said: “It has been a long road to get to this point, and it feels like we are just getting started.
“The commencement of drilling at Mojave represents a significant step forward for K2 Gold as we begin the largest and most comprehensive drill programme in the company's history.”
Earlier this year, K2 Gold commenced drilling operations at its fully owned Si2 Gold Project, situated around 59km west of Tonopah in Nevada, US.
