ASX Quarterly wrap: Charger delineates pegmatites, RareX’s big resource boost, Cylone acquires iron ore project

It’s the quarterly season again as the ASX market announcements page becomes increasingly flooded with activity lodgements.

To save you the trouble of trudging through it all, we’ve wrapped up the highlights from some of yesterday’s reports that caught our eye.

Charger Metals (ASX:CHR)

During the March 2023 quarter, Charger completed maiden reverse circulation drilling which delineated a swarm of stacked spodumene-bearing pegmatites up to 13m thick within a 100m wide corridor along 700m of strike at the Medcalf spodumene prospect within its Lake Johnston project in Western Australia.

Results from this program of 41 holes totalling 7,199m, which has demonstrated that the pegmatites extend under transported cover and at depth, will be modelled to define priority targets for follow-up drilling to test for extensions to the high-grade lithium mineralisation.

Post-quarter, an Aboriginal Heritage survey was completed at the Medcalf Prospect during April to prepare for the upcoming extensional drill program.

The company is also moving to 100% ownership of the Lake Johnston project after signing a binding agreement to acquire Lithium Australia’s 30% stake.

At the Bynoe lithium project in the Northern Territory, Charger has completed planning and permitting for the maiden drill program.

RareX (ASX:REE)

RareX had cause to celebrate during the March quarter after reporting a 500% increase in contained total rare earth oxides at its Cummins Range rare earths and phosphate project in WA’s Kimberley region.

With a resource of 397Mt grading 0.33% TREO and 4.2% phosphate, for contained resources of 1.3Mt TREO and 16.7Mt phosphate, at Rare Dyke, the project now hosts the second largest undeveloped REE deposit in Australia.

This provides the catalyst for a staged development approach, comprising firstly a DSO phosphate fertiliser operation, and a phosphate concentrate product, before developing a rare earths concentrate.

Further growth is expected this month when the company releases the resource estimate for the Phos Dyke – one of the other carbonatite dykes that make up the deposit.

Phosphate testwork has already confirmed the potential to produce direct-application fertilisers from DSO and concentrate, with results indicating exceptionally high phosphate bioavailability and highlighting the opportunity to produce organic fertilisers for agricultural applications.

The company has also appointed James Durrant as its chief executive and former FMG, Danakali and Rio marketing, sales and shipping executive Danny Goeman becoming a non-executive director while Jeremy Robinson taking up the role as non-executive chairman to prepare for RareX’s transition to development and operations.

“We are now forging ahead with feasibility studies for the Cummins Range project, focused on becoming a major new supplier of phosphate and rare earths – both of which represent vital strategic inputs for food and energy security in a growing and modernising world,” Durrant noted.

Cyclone Metals (ASX:CLE)

In January, Cyclone signed a binding agreement to acquire Block 103, the world’s largest proven undeveloped magnetite iron ore project, from Labrador Iron.

The project – located 30km northwest of Schefferville, Quebec – has an initial NI 43-101 compliant (non-JORC) mineral resource of over 7.2 billion tonnes grading 29.2% iron.

Shareholders approved the acquisition at a general meeting subsequent to quarter end.

Over $35m has been spent on the project thus far, including extensive drilling campaigns, metallurgical test work and engineering studies which outline two zones of high potential mineralisation on the property; the Northwest Zone and the Greenbush Zone.

While magnetite projects are normally costlier to build than hematite mines due to the need to process the lower grade ore into a concentrate, that concentrate is typically super-high grade, meaning it captures a significant premium over the 62% Fe benchmark and is much more amenable to low carbon emissions steelmaking.

Cyclone plans to focus on defining a maiden JORC 2012 compliant resource, completing metallurgical and pelletising test work, updating the existing economic feasibility studies, building a trial pilot plant, and completing environmental mitigation studies.

The company also raised $1.35m through a share placement to fund work on Block 103, costs associated with its acquisition and for general working capital.

Elsight (ASX:ELS)

The drone connectivity player scored 16 new ‘Design Win’ partners during the March
quarter from a range of industries and geographies including the US, Europe, and APAC –
taking the grand total to 94 committed partners.

ELS also saw strong recurring revenue growth as it deployed its Halo BVLOS (Beyond the
Visual Line of Sight) connectivity solution for drones more widely, with unaudited recurring income at approximately ~US$75k (+44%) during the quarter, up from ~US$52k in
December 2022 quarter.

Additional new revenue-driven features were released including a RemoteID feature on all Halo devices, to align with United States Federal Aviation Administration (US FAA part 89) requirements and a new feature enables Halo to support automatic RF recording and upload to the cloud during operation of the drone or other remote asset.

“These new features are expected to generate additional revenue for Elsight from existing and new customers moving forward, from up-sales and cross-sales activities,” the company said.

Also during the quarter, the company was selected as one of 14 global companies to
participate in the 5G Open Innovation Lab in the US where it will collaborate closely with leading global companies and network operators like Microsoft, Ericsson, T-Mobile, Intel, and e& Group (formerly “etisalat”) to enhance 5G capabilities and strengthen key strategic relationships for potential integration into partner ecosystems.

Cash at the bank on 31 March 2023 totalled US$4.674m.