China’s Zijin Mining Group has increased its shareholding in Strickland Metals to 7.4 per cent, strengthening its exposure to one of Serbia’s largest undeveloped gold and polymetallic projects while regulatory delays and local opposition continue to weigh on the Australian explorer’s market valuation.
Strickland, listed on the Australian Securities Exchange, controls the Rogozna project near Novi Pazar through its Serbian subsidiary, Zlatna Reka Resources. The project covers approximately 184 square kilometres and comprises four exploration licences containing gold, copper, silver, lead and zinc mineralisation.
The latest increase is understood to have been completed through purchases of Strickland shares on the open market. Zijin’s holding stood at 5.55 per cent in April 2026, meaning the Chinese group has continued accumulating shares while Strickland’s valuation has been under pressure from uncertainty surrounding exploration approvals in Serbia.
The transaction is financially modest for Zijin but strategically significant. The group already controls Serbia’s principal copper and gold production base around Bor and Majdanpek, including the Čukaru Peki underground mine, and has the technical personnel, processing expertise, equipment fleet and balance-sheet capacity required to move a large Serbian mineral resource from exploration into development.
Zijin’s growing investment does not give it operational control over Rogozna, nor has either company announced an acquisition or joint-development agreement. It does, however, position the Chinese group as an increasingly influential shareholder in Strickland and provides it with a relatively low-cost option on the future of a substantial gold-rich mineral system.
Strickland currently reports a Rogozna mineral resource of approximately 9.25mn ounces of gold equivalent, or close to 289 tonnes, at an average grade of about 1.33 grams per tonne. That resource is distributed across four principal deposits: Shanac, Gradina, Medenovac and Copper Canyon.
Shanac remains the project’s largest mineralised body, containing around 5.35mn ounces of gold equivalent. Its updated resource includes an indicated component of approximately 1.25mn ounces, an important step in improving geological confidence and preparing the deposit for more detailed mine planning.
Gradina offers a different development profile. The deposit is more gold-dominant and contains approximately 1.2mn ounces, with parts of the resource showing higher grades than the broader Rogozna average. Initial estimates included roughly 12mn tonnes at 3 grams of gold per tonne, using a 1.5 grams-per-tonne cut-off.
This combination of scale at Shanac and higher-grade mineralisation at Gradina gives Strickland several possible development routes. Rather than immediately attempting to finance a large integrated mining complex, the company could begin with a smaller operation focused on shallow or higher-grade zones and subsequently expand processing as geological confidence, permitting and cash generation improve.
Broker Shaw and Partners expects the first pre-feasibility study to concentrate on a comparatively shallow Gradina development with an initial processing capacity of between 1.5mn and 2mn tonnes of ore annually. Completion of the study is now expected toward the end of 2027, although earlier corporate guidance had pointed to the first half of that year.
At that scale, the initial plant would be materially smaller than the eventual infrastructure potentially required to exploit Rogozna’s full resource. The staged approach would reduce initial capital intensity and could limit early construction exposure, but it would still require a substantial programme of metallurgical testing, tailings design, water management, electricity-supply planning, transport studies and environmental assessment.
A preliminary operation processing 1.5mn–2mn tonnes annually could require several hundred million euros of development capital once the mine, processing plant, tailings facility, grid connection, water infrastructure and access works are included. The eventual cost will depend heavily on whether the first phase is designed as a standalone gold operation or as the foundation of a broader polymetallic complex capable of recovering copper, silver, lead and zinc.
The presence of several payable metals can improve project economics, but it also makes the processing circuit and product-marketing strategy more complicated. Metallurgical recoveries, concentrate quality, impurity levels and the selection of domestic or international smelting routes will be central to the pre-feasibility work. Resource size alone cannot establish Rogozna’s commercial value without credible recovery data and a viable environmental and infrastructure configuration.
Strickland entered 2026 with a comparatively strong funding position. In February it completed an institutional placement raising A$55mn through the issue of approximately 343.2mn shares at A$0.16 each. The capital was intended primarily to support a 70,000-metre drilling programme at Rogozna and advance the project towards pre-feasibility.
Zijin participated in that financing with an additional A$5mn. The Chinese group had initially invested A$5mn in Strickland through a strategic placement announced in April 2025, when it acquired approximately 2.4 per cent of the company. Subsequent participation in the February capital increase and purchases in the market lifted its ownership first to 5.55 per cent and now to 7.4 per cent.
The accumulation has taken place during a sharp deterioration in Strickland’s share price. The stock has lost around 40 per cent over the past year, reflecting the gap between the geological scale of Rogozna and the market’s assessment of its near-term regulatory and development prospects.
Australian brokerage estimates have placed a base valuation of about A$0.20 per share on Strickland, rising to A$0.30 as permitting and project risks are reduced. That compares with a recent market price of approximately A$0.085, implying that investors are applying a substantial discount to the company’s reported resource base.
Part of that discount reflects the ordinary risks attached to an exploration-stage company: further drilling requirements, uncertain metallurgical performance, capital-cost inflation, future shareholder dilution and the long interval before possible production. In Rogozna’s case, the discount has been amplified by delays in obtaining approvals for planned exploration work and by increasingly visible opposition from some residents and environmental groups.
Local organisation Ne damo Rogoznu has said that drilling planned for 2026 had not received the required approvals. Campaigners have organised road and equipment blockades and raised concerns about water resources, land use, waste management and the longer-term prospect of industrial mining in the Rogozna mountain area.
Strickland’s Serbian subsidiary has rejected claims that geological exploration has been abandoned or formally suspended. Serbia’s Ministry of Mining and Energy has maintained that administrative decisions will be taken under the applicable legal framework and independently of individual companies’ commercial schedules.
The distinction between an exploration right and approval for a specific drilling programme is central. Holding an exploration licence does not automatically permit unrestricted drilling at every location or on every timetable. Individual works can remain dependent on technical documentation, land access, environmental conditions and administrative consent.
These delays are commercially relevant even before a mine-development application is submitted. Interruptions to drilling can slow the conversion of inferred resources into the indicated category, postpone metallurgical sampling and shift the pre-feasibility timetable. Every year added to the exploration and study phase pushes back the potential construction decision and reduces the present value of future cash flows.
Rogozna would face a much more demanding approval process before mining could begin. A development of the scale contemplated would require detailed environmental assessment, water and waste-management solutions, land-access arrangements, spatial-planning alignment and extensive public consultation. Tailings storage and protection of surface and underground water are likely to be the most sensitive technical issues.
This is where Zijin’s presence carries both industrial value and political complexity. The Chinese group has demonstrated that it can finance and execute large Serbian mining projects. It acquired control of the former RTB Bor complex in 2018, developed Čukaru Peki and expanded copper and gold production across eastern Serbia. Its two principal Serbian businesses produced roughly 300,000 tonnes of copper and 250,000 ounces of gold in 2024.
Zijin is also preparing a much larger investment cycle around the lower zone of Čukaru Peki, associated processing facilities and the Malka Golaja copper-gold deposit. A previously announced development framework contemplated as much as $3.8bn of additional investment, alongside a proposed 300 MW solar project intended partly to support the group’s industrial electricity demand.
That Serbian platform gives Zijin several potential advantages at Rogozna. It already understands national permitting procedures, maintains relations with central and local institutions and has access to specialised mining personnel. It could also evaluate whether Rogozna concentrates might eventually be integrated with its broader Serbian metallurgical system, subject to mineralogy, transport costs and plant compatibility.
Yet the experience around Bor also means that any deeper Zijin role at Rogozna would attract scrutiny over environmental performance, land acquisition, labour practices and the concentration of mining ownership. A future takeover or operating partnership would therefore need to demonstrate more than access to capital. It would require a credible design for water protection, tailings safety, transparent monitoring and local economic participation.
For Strickland, Zijin’s 7.4 per cent interest provides strategic validation without yet resolving the project’s regulatory constraints. It may also strengthen expectations that Zijin could ultimately seek a larger position, negotiate an offtake arrangement, finance construction or acquire the project once geological and permitting risks have been reduced.
The investment can equally be interpreted as disciplined optionality. At current equity prices, Zijin can expand its exposure to Rogozna for a fraction of the cost of acquiring or developing the asset outright. Should the permitting process stabilise and the pre-feasibility study confirm an economic mine, the value of that position could rise sharply. Should development remain blocked, Zijin’s financial exposure remains limited relative to its global balance sheet.
Rogozna’s next material revaluation will therefore depend less on another headline resource increase than on evidence that Strickland can resume its planned drilling, convert more ounces into higher-confidence categories and establish a technically defensible development route. Zijin’s continued buying indicates confidence in the geology, but the timetable and eventual value of the project will be determined by permitting credibility, engineering evidence and the quality of the company’s engagement with communities around Novi Pazar.
