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Alice Queen
Investor Insight
Combining near-term discovery and development strategy, Alice Queen is positioned to unlock significant shareholder value through its high-impact gold projects in Fiji and Australia. Supported by strategic investors, it offers a rare blend of near-term exploration upside and longer-term development potential.
Overview
Alice Queen (ASX:AQX) is a gold exploration company targeting district-scale discoveries and near-term production opportunities. The company’s flagship project is the Viani gold project in Fiji, where early drilling results point to a major epithermal gold system similar to other epithermal gold systems hosted on the Pacific Ring of Fire with Fiji also hosting the 10 Moz Vatukoula gold mine. With a portfolio spanning the Pacific Ring of Fire and Australia's most prolific gold belts, Alice Queen combines geological potential with strategic capital access.
The company’s secondary asset, Horn Island, contains over half a million ounces of gold in a JORC-compliant resource. A previously released scoping study (2021) for Horn Island indicates an NPV of over AU$500 million, after an internal update on the numbers at AU$5,000/oz gold. Discussions with development partners are underway to unlock value from this asset, which could produce more than AU$800 million in free cash flow over a projected eight-year mine life.
Alice Queen’s shareholder registry is anchored by Gage Resource Development (51 percent) and includes significant long-term, and well-funded Australian investors. The company is pursuing a balanced strategy of value creation through drilling success, strategic partnerships and asset-level monetization.
Company Highlights
- High-impact Discovery at Viani in Fiji: Drilling at the Viani project has confirmed a significant low-sulphidation epithermal gold system with mineralization over a ~5 km strike, with assay results from recent drilling expected imminently.
- Established Gold Resource at Horn Island: The Horn Island project hosts a 524,000 oz JORC-compliant gold resource and is being advanced through potential development partnerships, offering near-term monetization opportunities.
- Strategic Financial Backing: Backed by major shareholder Gage Resource Development, a subsidiary of Beijing-based Gage Capital (US$1.6 billion AUM), ensuring access to growth capital and long-term support.
- Exceptional Leadership: Led by a highly experienced management team with a successful track record in global business and resource development.
Key Projects
Viani Project
The Viani gold project, located on Vanua Levu, Fiji’s second-largest island, is emerging as Alice Queen’s flagship exploration asset, with strong early indications of a large-scale, high-grade, low-sulphidation epithermal gold system. The project covers more than 200 sq km of underexplored ground within Fiji that hosts the Vatukoula gold mine, a +10 Moz deposit located on Fiji’s main island, Viti Levu. Viani’s main prospect, Dakuniba, has been the focus of extensive historical and current surface work, including trenching, rock chip sampling and limited historical drilling, which have collectively defined a mineralized corridor extending over ~5 km in strike length. Assay results from the maiden program have confirmed depth potential of high-grade gold to 175 m.
Gold mineralization is hosted in banded quartz veins and quartz-adularia stockworks associated with strong argillic and silicic alteration, indicative of a classic low-sulphidation system. Alice Queen has conducted detailed geochemical sampling and geophysical interpretation to delineate drill targets, with Phase 1 diamond drilling that commenced in December 2024. The current program comprises an initial three-hole diamond campaign (approximately 1,000 metres), targeting depth extensions of the mapped surface mineralization. The first hole, 24VDD001, intercepted zones of epithermal-style veining, with visible alteration and sulphide mineralization. The geophysical signature of the host rocks reveals zones of magnetite destruction associated with alteration, providing a critical exploration vector for further target generation. Over a dozen discrete structural targets have been identified within the broader 7 km hydrothermal corridor.
The company is exploring follow-up drilling and potential geophysical (ground mag) surveys as a way to identify where the structures that host the mineralisation broaden or dilate to refine these targets. The scale, alteration style and structural setting of the Viani system suggest the potential for a significant gold discovery, with parallels to other globally productive vein-hosted systems in the Pacific Rim.
Horn Island Project
Horn Island, located in the Torres Strait approximately 17 km off the northern coast of Queensland, is a development-stage project with an existing JORC 2012-compliant mineral resource estimate of 16.7 Mt at 0.98 g/t gold for 524,000 ounces of contained gold in the indicated and inferred categories. The project is classified as an intrusion-related gold system, characterized by sheeted vein systems, broad hydrothermal alteration, and disseminated gold mineralization associated with late-stage felsic intrusives.
The resource is centered on a historical open-pit gold mine and remains open to the northwest, with several additional prospects—including the Southern Silicified Ridge—identified within the project area. The mineralized zone is hosted in altered andesitic volcanics and quartz-feldspar porphyry intrusives, with gold associated with pyrite, arsenopyrite, and quartz-carbonate veining.
The project has full community backing, including a 7.5 percent free-carried interest held by the local Kaurareg Aboriginal People. It benefits from excellent infrastructure, including daily commercial flights, ferry access to nearby Thursday Island, and shipping links to Cairns and Weipa.
Alice Queen is currently engaged with several interested parties in partnership discussions about Horn Island via Argonaut PCF. The company is optimistic that a partnership deal can unlock significant shareholder value and reduce dilution.
Sabeto Project
The Sabeto Project is located within the Sabeto Valley on Fiji’s main island, Viti Levu, and sits within a 15 km east-west trending structural corridor that hosts both epithermal and porphyry-style mineralization. The project is situated between the historic Vuda gold prospect and Lion One’s (ASX:LLO) operating Tuvatu gold mine, which is hosted within the Nawainiu Intrusive Complex —the same intrusive suite that underlies the Sabeto project area. Sabeto is interpreted to host a sub-volcanic porphyry copper-gold breccia system, with historic drilling confirming broad zones of alteration and anomalous copper and gold values coincident with a ‘bullseye’ ZTEM resistivity high anomaly. This geophysical feature is interpreted as representing a buried intrusive centre, possibly related to porphyry-style mineralization.
The upcoming drill program at Sabeto is designed to test three priority targets, all defined by surface geochemistry, geophysical signatures and diatreme-style breccias. Proposed diamond hole A will test west of previous holes SBDD0001 and SBDD0004, targeting potential lateral continuity of the mineralized intrusive. Hole B aims to drill beneath an outcropping diatreme breccia with gold-copper anomalies, and under a significant gold soil anomaly 300 meters northwest of hole SBDD0003. Hole C will test the southern extent of a copper-anomalous diatreme breccia zone identified in mapping. The planned 1,800-meter program is expected to begin, following completion of the Viani Phase 1 campaign and will further test the scale and fertility of the porphyry system at Sabeto.
Boda East & Mendooran Projects
Located in the heart of the Lachlan Fold Belt (LFB), one of Australia's most fertile porphyry terranes, Alice Queen’s Boda East and Mendooran projects are early-stage copper-gold exploration assets. Boda East lies immediately adjacent to Alkane Resources’ (ASX:ALK) Boda and Kaiser deposits, which host large-scale porphyry-style copper-gold mineralization. Geological mapping and drilling at Boda East have confirmed the presence of porphyritic intrusives, hydrothermal breccias and disseminated sulphide mineralization, consistent with porphyry-related alteration. Eleven holes have been drilled to date, with several intersecting pathfinder elements and anomalous copper-gold grades. Further drilling is planned to vector toward the core of the system.
The Mendooran project, situated further south in the LFB, targets large porphyry copper-gold systems associated with the Molong Volcanic Belt. Historic drilling and surface sampling have identified alteration halos and geochemical anomalies typical of porphyry environments. These projects provide optionality and long-term upside exposure to bulk-tonnage copper-gold mineralization and may be attractive candidates for joint venture or strategic partnerships with larger players active in the region.
Management Team
Jianying Wang - Non-executive Chairman
Chairman of Beijing Gage Capital Management, Jianying Wang oversees US$1.6 billion in assets and brings extensive experience in global M&A and equity investment. He has supported Alice Queen through multiple funding rounds.
Andrew Buxton - Managing Director
Andrew Buxton is the founder of Alice Queen and former managing director of Kidman Resources, He brings over 25 years of experience in capital markets and resource company management, and leads the company’s exploration and development strategy.
Dale McCabe - Executive Director
A co-founder of Alice Queen, Dale McCabe has managed operational rollouts and exploration execution since 2015. For more than two decades, he worked in the IT sector and brings broad project coordination experience.
Paul Williams – Non-executive Director
Currently managing director of ASX-listed AuKing Limited (ASX:AKN), Paul Williams is an experienced mining and resources executive with over 30 years of experience across multiple commodities and multiple jurisdictions.
Exploring the Pacific Rim: High-grade epithermal gold and near-term production potential
Navigating Uncertainty: How Trump's Tariffs Are Affecting the Gold Market
Read on to learn how tariffs have affected the gold market and price so far.
How have tariffs affected the gold price?
The gold price has been on the rise since the beginning of the year. After briefly touching the US$3,500 per ounce level in May, it has pulled back and was trading just under US$3,400 as of Tuesday (August 26).
Gold price, January 1 to August 26, 2025.
Chart via TradingEconomics.
Although some of its increase is attributable to the points mentioned above, a significant portion is owed to a lack of information surrounding US President Donald Trump’s tariff policies.
Initially there was no clarity on what or who was being tariffed, or when the levies would ultimately be implemented, and investors started to move into gold for greater stability and portfolio diversification.
Uncertainty about whether gold would be tariffed also had an effect, prompting traders in the US to import physical gold; this created a price differential between New York futures and the London spot price.
Concerns dissipated as the Trump administration began to nail down tariffs, but were reignited once again when US Customs and Border Patrol posted a ruling on July 31 indicating that the 39 percent tariffs against imports from Switzerland would include 1 kilogram and 100 ounce gold bars.
The news caused spot gold to spike more than 3 percent, from US$3,290 to US$3,398, and sent December futures to an all-time high of US$3,549. Meanwhile, traders halted imports of Swiss bars.
After several days of turmoil, Trump said the ruling was incorrect, and the bars would not be included in the tariff measures being applied to other Swiss imports; the gold price then retreated.
How would gold tariffs have impacted the market?
Gold functions as both a commodity and an essential part of the world’s financial system.
One kilogram and 100 ounce gold bars are used to back futures trading, and regular shipments of the metal are needed to settle contracts once they come due. A 39 percent tariff on gold from Switzerland would have been particularly disruptive, as Swiss refineries account for approximately 70 percent of the world’s gold.
According to the UN Comtrade database, in 2024, Switzerland exported more than 1,400 metric tons of unwrought gold worth more than US$106 billion, representing nearly 30 percent of the country’s total exports. Tariffs would have forced US buyers to pay a significant premium for the precious metal versus buyers in London or Shanghai.
Because gold is often used as a store of value in times of uncertainty, any kind of disruption could have had broader implications for investors looking to add stability to their portfolios.
In an email to the Investing News Network (INN), Lauren Saidel-Baker, CFA, an economist with ITR Economics, explained that gold stands out as a unique investment mechanism:
“There are psychological nuances to gold, which is commonly viewed as a safe store of value during uncertain times and an inflation hedge. Overall, the tariff would have added another facet to the already elevated policy uncertainty."
If the tariffs had remained in place, the US gold price would have had to rise to around US$4,700 per ounce to cover levies, while international prices would have remained closer to the US$3,500 mark.
“Tariffs have already complicated supply chains across industries, and this gold tariff would have been another example of added cost and complexity — but in this case, one with the potential to more directly impact investment activities,” Saidel-Baker went on to explain, emphasizing that US investors would have felt the pinch.
Could gold tariffs happen in the future?
Given Trump's unpredictability, especially when it comes to tariffs, it's possible that gold levies could enter the conversation again. However, by and large experts agree that the matter is closed.
“I think it’s pretty clear at this point that there’s no intention to put tariffs on physical gold imports, and I think that would be very damaging and destructive if they did,” Stefan Gleason, CEO of Money Metals, told INN.
Keith Weiner, founder and CEO of Monetary Metals, offered another perspective, saying that although the gold tariff threat is over, the tumult could have long-term effects on the market.
"Once you've put the scare into everybody, you can't just say, 'Oh, sorry, just kidding.' You can't really do that. And so now we've done damage, and we'll see what happens to that spread over time. We'll see how users of the futures market adapt. There are other markets in the world that would be competing for," he explained.
"This hedging business, you know, maybe it moves to Singapore, maybe it moves to Dubai, maybe it moves to London, and the US loses not only a little more trust, but also a little bit of volume on what had been the biggest — or what is currently the biggest — futures market," Weiner added to INN.
Market participants will be watching closely for future impacts on the yellow metal.
Don't forget to follow us @INN_Resource for real-time updates!
Securities Disclosure: I, Dean Belder, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.
Editorial Disclosure: The Investing News Network does not guarantee the accuracy or thoroughness of the information reported in the interviews it conducts. The opinions expressed in these interviews do not reflect the opinions of the Investing News Network and do not constitute investment advice. All readers are encouraged to perform their own due diligence.
Alice Queen Investor Kit
- Corporate info
- Insights
- Growth strategies
- Upcoming projects