In Case You Missed It: Iron ore royalties, rare earths and some lithium

Stockhead’s In-Case-You-Missed-It highlights today’s most interesting small cap stories that might have slipped beneath your radar.
Below is a wrap of the top 20 performing stocks, by percentage, who made announcements today.

ICYMI Leader Board

Code	Company	Price	% Today	Market Cap
OEQ	Orion Equities	0.15	121%	$1,064,148
CUF	Cufe Ltd	0.019	36%	$16,045,573
SRK	Strike Resources	0.062	27%	$13,903,750
PAM	Pan Asia Metals	0.19	23%	$26,011,601
VMM	Viridismining	1.62	21%	$59,957,115
DY6	Dy6Metalsltd	0.12	20%	$3,856,249
VTX	Vertexmin	0.155	15%	$8,425,125
GSS	Genetic Signatures	0.46	14%	$66,791,342
5EA	5Eadvanced	0.25	11%	$69,223,538
AUN	Aurumin	0.027	8%	$8,961,077
FFG	Fatfish Group	0.019	6%	$23,130,511
SNT	Syntara Limited	0.02	5%	$15,794,954
STK	Strickland Metals	0.105	5%	$163,177,312
BNL	Blue Star Helium Ltd	0.024	4%	$44,672,101
CAA	Capral Limited	9.93	3%	$169,795,296
STX	Strike Energy Ltd	0.49	3%	$1,359,557,284
IBC	Ironbark Capital Ltd	0.47	2%	$50,277,769
COG	Consolidated Ops Gp	1.47	2%	$277,917,354
IAM	Income Asset	0.076	1%	$23,390,546
ANO	Advance Zinctek Ltd	1.03	1%	$63,680,353

The two top players today and connected via the deal that Strike Resources (ASX:SRK) has made with Miracle Iron Holdings for the sale of its subsdiary – and owner of Paulsens East iron ore project – Strike Iron Ore for $20.5m.

As part of the deal, Miracle requested the cancellation of the royalty that is payable to Orion Equities (ASX:OEQ) subsidiary CXM for iron ore produced from Paulsens East.

CXM has agreed to terminate and provide releases to Miracle, and Miracle has agreed to pay $2m (with a further $3m payment deferred to 30 June 2024) to CXM as consideration for the termination of the Orion royalty.

Viridis Mining and Minerals (ASX:VMM) has reported the highest grades at its Colossus rare earths project in Brazil to date of up to 8,277ppm total rare earth oxides from the Capão da Onça prospect.

DY6 Metals (ASX:DY6) has secured a 6-month option to acquire an 80% interest in the Karonga lithium project located in northern Malawi.

And Vertex Minerals (ASX:VTX) has released the pre-feasibility study for its Reward gold mine in NSW, which highlights average monthly gold production of 2,169 oz over 23 months with 92% gold recovery, CAPEX of $28.5m, AISC of $1,712 per ounce, NPV at $28.3m pre tax and IRR at 77% pre tax – plus a life of mine pre-tax cash of $35.7 million at $3,000/oz gold price.

More Top Small Cap Stories: Wednesday

Blue Star Helium (ASX:BNL) has updated the resources at its Voyager project in Colorado by 33% to a 2C net unrisked contingent helium resource of 857 MMscf.

MTM Critical Metals (ASX:MTM) says rare earth element and niobium mineralisation have been confirmed over a 2km2 target area at its Pomme project in Canada.

At Stockhead we tell it like it is. While Vertex Minerals, Blue Star Helium, Viridis Mining and Minerals, MTM Critical Metals are Stockhead advertisers, they did not sponsor this article.