Strickland Metals (ASX:STK) upgrades Gradina resource to 1.8Moz gold – a 50% increase!

Rogozna now sits at 9.24Moz AuEq with A$81m cash, and PFS workstreams have quietly started

Mid-cap gold aspirantStrickland Metals (ASX:STK) has dropped another sizeable resource update at its Rogozna Project in Serbia, this time at the Gradina deposit. The inferred resource has lifted 50% to 1.8 million ounces of gold at 2.8 grams per tonne. That takes the project-wide resource base to 9.24 million ounces of gold equivalent.

The interesting part is not just the headline ounce growth. Gradina is now economically constrained inside optimised underground stopes at a US$2,500 per ounce gold price, well below where spot currently sits. The deposit also delivers around 4,700 gold ounces per vertical metre through its core.

For investors following the Rogozna story, this is the third consecutive resource upgrade across the project in roughly 15 months. Strickland still has around A$81 million in cash as at 31 March, so the drill rigs can keep turning without a raise on the horizon. The bigger signal sits at the bottom of the announcement. Pre-Feasibility Study workstreams have now commenced.

Why the 4,700 ounces per vertical metre number matters more than the headline

Underground mining is a vertical metres game. The more ounces you can pull out of each metre of vertical development, the better the economics look. Gradina’s core delivers around 4,700 gold ounces per vertical metre, the kind of intensity that turns an exploration story into a development one.

Strickland is also flagging near-horizontal adit access from the ridge flank to the east. That matters because adit access is cheaper to build and faster to commission than a shaft. It also means lower upfront capex when a development decision eventually arrives.

The grade itself, at 2.8 grams per tonne inferred underground, sits comfortably above where modern underground gold projects work. The skeptical read is that this is still inferred classification, so the next test is converting tonnes into indicated.

How Gradina fits into the broader 9.24Moz Rogozna story

Rogozna is now a four-deposit story. Shanac is the largest at 5.35Moz AuEq, followed by Gradina at 1.8Moz, Medenovac at 1.28Moz and Copper Canyon at 0.81Moz. Each deposit shares the same Tethyan Belt geology that has underpinned some of the world’s largest gold and copper discoveries.

What stood out to us is that Gradina is the only gold-only deposit in the portfolio. The others carry copper, silver, lead and zinc credits. For investors who want clean exposure to the gold price, Gradina is the asset that does that work without metallurgical complexity from base metals.

We think the market is still anchoring on Shanac as the headline asset, which is fair given its scale. But Gradina has now grown 50% from its maiden December 2025 estimate, and the deposit remains open in all directions.

The PFS commencement is the line institutions will circle

Buried in the next steps section is the disclosure that Pre-Feasibility Study workstreams have begun on Rogozna. That is a meaningful transition. The company is moving from pure exploration into development studies, which is when institutional money typically starts paying closer attention.

Our concern is the timing risk. A PFS on a multi-deposit project of this scale is not a quick exercise, and investors should expect 12 to 18 months minimum before meaningful outputs land. A development decision at a project of this scale will eventually require capital that dwarfs the current A$81 million treasury.

The Investors Takeaway for Strickland Metals

Strickland has now delivered three consecutive resource upgrades across Rogozna, and Gradina’s 50% lift is the latest data point in a story that keeps compounding. The combination of scale, grade, vertical intensity and a Tier-1 jurisdiction in Serbia makes this one of the more credible gold development stories on the ASX small-cap board.

What we would want to see next is conversion of inferred ounces into indicated, the first PFS outputs landing in market, and continued drilling success at Gradina. Investors can read our prior coverage at stocksdownunder. The Rogozna story is no longer about whether the ounces exist. It is now about whether they can be economically extracted, and on what timeline.