GTi Resources’ (ASX:GTR) Western Australian gold project is gaining traction in a market where talk of gold remains bullish, despite its recent fluctuations.

GTR’s 100% owned Niagara Gold Project is located near Kookynie in the Eastern Goldfields of WA.

It is here where Genesis Minerals Ltd (ASX: GMD) recently acquired its own Kookynie ground, incorporating the Greater Ulysses Project, a 248km² tenement package that includes 15km of strike length, a JORC Indicated and Inferred Resource of 414,000oz and 1.28Moz.

Furthermore, GTR’s neighbour Metalicity Ltd (ASX: MCT) recently conducted a highly successful drilling campaign, which saw its share price gain almost 250% after the company hit “spectacular” high grade results from first assays in its joint venture (JV) with Nex Metals Exploration Ltd (ASX: NME).

GTR’s WA ground is only circa 2km north of Metalicity’s’s project.

MCT is capped at $40.5 million, while GMD is capped at $120.9. GTR is currently capped at $17.5 million and is about to undertake a maiden drilling program on untested targets at Kookynie.

If GTR identifies high grade gold in its upcoming drilling program, it could see a significant rise in value based on the past movements of companies in the region.

Last week, GTR confirmed a first phase 50 hole aircore drilling programme for September, which will lead into a second phase RC drilling programme for October. GTR is permitted to conduct 10,000m of drilling at its Niagara Project.

Today, the news was just as strong for the company, which advised the market that it had commenced a significantly expanded 1,000- hole soil sampling program, via auger drilling at Niagara.

This program is the next step in GTR’s rapid evaluation of the potential for economic gold mineralisation across the newly consolidated and historically under-explored Niagara Trend in WA’s highly prospective eastern goldfields.

The geochemical results from this soil sampling program will be integrated into the existing litho-geochemical, geophysical and geological data sets to guide targeting of the circa 50‐hole first phase Aircore drilling campaign planned for September.

A second phase of drilling will commence in October, utilising targeted deeper RC drilling, to test the most attractive zones of interpreted gold mineralisation.

“It’s great to get the next stage of our field program underway with an expanded soil sampling and ground reconnaissance campaign,” GTI Executive Director Bruce Lane said.

“The 1,000‐hole soil sampling campaign infills and extends the previous soil sampling program based on the previous multi‐element lithogeochemical interpretation combined with the recent Aeromagnetic survey.

“We will follow up the current work with first phase drilling of about 50 Aircore holes during September. The current field work combined with September’s planned Aircore drilling will further refine our understanding of the lithogeochemical and mineralising systems at Niagara and will help us locate the most prospective zones for October’s second phase deeper RC drilling campaign.

“We are very encouraged to see the correlations between the previous soil geochemistry results and the aeromagnetic signatures and we look forward to refining our lithogeochemical interpretation and drill targeting throughout the coming weeks.

“It’s also encouraging to see our neighbours in the area investing in significant exploration activities as excitement builds in this highly prospective yet historically underexplored part of WA’s goldfields.”

The ability to accelerate production would be highly beneficial for GTR given the current Australian dollar gold price.

Gold continues to hover in the vicinity of US$2000 per ounce and with the Australian dollar fetching about US$0.72, the implied gold price for a project such as Niagara is approximately US$2700 per ounce.