• Stocks that have made the 2023 list are all leveraged to exploration upside
  • Gold and lithium stocks have not made the 2023 list
  • Garimpeiro’s BBQ Stoppers List: Bellavista, Devex, Magmatic, QMines, Stellar

 

It’s the time of year when Garimpeiro complies a list of junior exploration stocks to stick in his back pocket before heading off to festive season BBQs.

Garimpeiro can’t attend such events without being asked what stocks are interesting him in the junior sector. He goes prepared with what he calls his BBQ Stoppers list.

In return he gets a cold beer and a chop, although the dismal performance of the juniors nominated a year ago for the 2022 BBQ Stoppers list has Garimpeiro wondering if he will be lucky this year to score a warm beer and a burnt sausage.

Sticking to the task, the common theme as always is that the stocks that have made the 2023 list are all are leveraged to exploration upside, remembering though that 2022 showed all too well that leverage can work in reverse.

Gold and lithium stocks have not made the 2023 list. Nothing controversial in that.

Garimpeiro wants to wait and see gold consolidate above $US1,800/oz in early 2023 before revisiting the sector. Lithium doesn’t make the cut because as the recent nervousness has demonstrated, lithium stocks will get absolutely smashed if there is a decisive move down in pricing for the battery material.

Best to wait then for the nerves around pricing to settle before returning to the lithium explorers and developers sometime in 2023.

As always, stocks mentioned on Garimpeiro’s BBQ Stoppers list should not be taken as recommendations. They make the list because their exploration efforts are interesting and show promise in the year ahead. Good luck to all of them.

 

Bellavista Resources (ASX:BVR)

Trading at 21c for a market cap of $14 million. Backed by some sharp types in the mining game, Bellavista only joined the ASX in May with the objective of targeting large scale base metals deposits in the lightly explored northern margin of WA’s Edmund Basin.

It has been busy with the drill bit at its Brumby zinc-copper-silver prospect which is of the SEDEX-style which can deliver large to super-large deposits. There has been lots of encouragement on that front from widely-spaced drill holes, and more assay results are on the way.

That the share price has traded at levels above the May issue price of 20c reflects the interest in this one in WA exploration circles.

 

Devex Resources (ASX:DEV)

Trading at 28c for a market cap of $105 million. There is nothing the market likes more than high-grade uranium hits. Devex delivered on that front in 2022 at its project surrounding the historic Nabarlek mine in the Northern Territory.

Latest results included a 10.1m intersection grading 1.1% of the radioactive stuff.

It’s the wet season in the Top End so drilling won’t resume until April. Not to worry; the Tim Goyder stabled company will fill the temporary gap in its uranium exploration newsflow by kicking off a copper-gold drilling program in NSW’s Lachlan Foldbelt early in the new year.

 

Magmatic Resources (ASX:MAG)

Trading at 8.7c for a market cap of $26 million. Another one in the copper-gold hunt in NSW. The company reckons its Myall project near Narromine in central NSW has Tier 1 potential.

It finished off its 2022 drilling program with a bit of a flourish, reporting its third successive 400m-plus copper-gold intersections at the Corvette prospect within the broader Myall project area. Grades were typical of the large-scale copper-gold porphyries elsewhere in the region.

More assay results are due late in January.

 

QMines (ASX:QML)

Trading at 15c for a market cap of $20 million. It has been kicking goals at its Mount Chalmers copper-gold project near Rockhampton in north-east Queensland. Resource additions are a regular with this one.

The current resource stands at 144,700 tonnes of contained copper equivalent across a number of deposits and there is more to come. Achieving critical mass for a development project is the aim. Infrastructure for a future development is as good as it gets.

 

Stellar Resources (ASX:SRZ)

It wouldn’t be a BBQ Stopper list without Garimpeiro coming up with a stock in the 1-2c a share bracket. So Stellar it is.

It’s trading at 1.2c for a market cap of $12 million. It’s Heemskirk tin project near Zeehan in Tasmania has been waiting a long time for its day in the sun. The deposit is the highest grade undeveloped tin project in Australia, or third in the world.

The tin price has come back from the crazy levels of earlier in the year but is supportive of new mine developments as the metal’s “green’’ credentials in a decarbonising world become better known, and as new mine developments needed to fill supply deficits remain thin on the ground.

The company has also been busy growing a gold and lithium portfolio in Tassie’s north-east, and recently won a prized piece of exploration ground about 10kms east of Zeehan considered highly prospective for volcanogenic massive sulphide-type deposits.

 

The views, information, or opinions expressed in the interview in this article are solely those of the interviewee and do not represent the views of Stockhead.

Stockhead has not provided, endorsed or otherwise assumed responsibility for any financial product advice contained in this article.

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