ASX gold stock Astral Resources Ltd (ASX: AAR) has had a big week for news at its Mandilla gold project in Western Australia, and according to the analysts at Shaw and Partners the company is one to watch.
They have a buy recommendation on the stock, albeit with a high-risk warning, and a bullish share price target, which I'll get to shortly.
First let's look at what the company has announced.
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Solid drilling results from WA gold prject
Earlier this week, Astral released the latest drilling from the Theia deposit at the Mandilla project, saying further broad zones of mineralisation had been intersected.
The best results included 52.7m at 4.67 grams per tonne of gold from a depth of 445m, and 21m at 1.61 grams per tonne from 321m.
To date 13 holes of a total of 21 have been drilled.
Commenting on the result, Astral Resources Managing Director Marc Ducler said:
The Theia Deeps drill program, which has now been extended to 21 holes for 11,000m, continues to show tremendous potential for additional growth at Theia, with the program targeting further high-grade extensions to the Theia resource at depth and along strike. These latest assay results … have all demonstrated broad zones of high-grade gold mineralisation beyond the base of the current April 2026 Mineral Resource shell. These programs position Astral for a very active second half of 2026 as we continue to both de-risk and grow the Theia deposit, advance the Mandilla Project definitive feasibility study (DFS) and kick-off a series of very promising exploration programs to test for growth opportunities at Kamperman and across our highly prospective Spargoville tenure.
In addition to the new exploration results, Astral announced it had struck a land-use agreement with the Marlinyu Ghoorlie Native Title Claimant Group for the project.
The company said the agreement covers protocols for heritage surveys, activities to protect identified sites and clearance procedures to facilitate mining activities at the Mandilla project.
This ASX gold company's shares are looking cheap
Shaw and Partners said the land use agreement was an important hurdle for the company.
They also said they saw good prospects for a mineral resource upgrade from the company either accompanying or following the DFS.
They added:
We maintain Buy rating on Astral Resources and $0.30 price target. The combination of continued high-grade extensional drilling at Theia and the completion of native title agreements across the Mandilla DFS tenement package both support the de-risking thesis into DFS completion in MarQ'27. Next key catalysts include further Theia Deeps assays, the Spargoville and Kamperman follow-up drilling in SepQ, and delivery of the Mandilla DFS itself.
Astral shares are currently changing hands for 18.5 cents. The company is valued at $297.2 million.
