It’s the quarterly season again as the ASX market announcements page becomes increasingly flooded with update lodgements.
To save you the trouble of trudging through it all, we’ve wrapped up the highlights from some of the reports that caught our eye.
Golden State Mining (ASX:GSM)
During the quarter, lithium and gold explorer GSM acquired exploration rights adjacent to the Nomad lithium prospect at its Yule project in the Pilbara. This grows its ground position at Yule to ~766km2 in a region that hosts hard rock lithium players and Tier 1 gold discoveries like Pilbara Minerals (ASX:PLS), Mineral Resources (ASX:MIN), De Grey Mining (ASX:DEG), Azure Minerals (ASX:AZS) and Wildcat Resources (ASX:WC8).
Around +2000m of RC drilling is planned for the Nomad prospect for the September quarter.
The company is also focused on the Paynes Find Central target at its Paynes Find lithium project, which is a ~2.5km target zone delineated on same trend as Sayona Mining’s (ASX:SYA) Mt. Edon pegmatites.
Other planned activities for the September quarter include AC drilling at Yule, mapping and sampling at Paynes Find and Phase 2 gold sampling at Southern Cross.
GSM also raised $2 million and sold its Cue project for $200,000 cash and a royalty during the period.
Valor Resources (ASX:VAL)
Valor streamlined its portfolio, selling its Peruvian copper projects, to focus on its uranium and rare earth assets in Canada’s Athabasca Basin.
Barrick Gold can earn up to 70% in the Charaque project for cash payments totalling US$800,000 and US$3 million of exploration expenditure over a 5-year term, and post quarter end, VAL divested up to 80% of its Picha and Charaque projects to Firetail Resources (ASX:FTL) retaining exposure to future exploration upside with 20% interest.
In Canada, VAL staked the Beatty River heavy rear earth/uranium project where previous explorers trenching and surface sampling reported assays up to 8.75% TREO with up to 1.15 dysprosium.
At the Hidden Bay uranium project (just 20kms from Cameco’s historic Rabbit Lake uranium mine) drill planning is underway for Q1 2024.
Lake Resources (ASX:LKE)
Lake increased the Measured and Indicated (M&I) resources at its Kachi project in Argentina from 2.19 to 2.93 million tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) defined, to a depth of 400 m over 106km2 – supporting 25+ years of supply life.
Additionally, the update revealed the growth of inferred resource to 5.18 Mt LCE defined over 161 km2, supporting further potential expansion opportunities.
Based on the above, Lake revised project timelines, with the DFS is expected to be completed and submitted in December 2023 and first lithium is now expected in 2H 2027 along with a two-phased approach to production of 2 x 25kpta plants.
The company had a cash balance of $A90.1 million and no debt at 30 June 2023.
Meeka Metals (ASX:MEK)
During the quarter Meeka completed the Murchison gold project feasibility study in WA, which envisaged average annual gold production of 80,000oz over the first eight years, with peak production of 103,000oz in year six.
The Internal Rate of Return (IRR) pre-tax was 40% ($2,750/oz) and 56% ($3,000/oz) with payback following process plant commissioning at 22 months ($2,750/oz) and 16 months ($3,000/oz) at an All-in Sustaining Cost (AISC) of $1,684/oz.
An initial mineral resource reported for the shallow, high-grade St Anne’s deposit, took the total Murchison mineral resources above 1.2Moz at 3g/t gold (>50% in Measured or Indicated) – plus an initial rare earth Mineral Resource of 98Mt at 890ppm TREO was reported for the Circle Valley rare earths project – also in WA.
MEK maintained a cash position of $2.8m at quarter end.
Mt Malcolm Mines (ASX:M2M)
At the company’s Golden Crown prospect at its Malcom Dan Volcanic Hosted Massive Sulphides (VHMS) copper-zinc project in WA, 3D modelling and Hyper Spectral analysis of RC chips defined lithogeochemical domains, with full targeting and drill programming to be released shortly.
Plus, further REE field evaluations defined an additional 4km strike extent of anomalous (+1,000ppm) REE elements and a VHMS target was identified by a historical IP survey.
The development of the recent Calypso ‘Constance Lode’ discovery – part of the company’s Mt Malcolm gold project – remains the premier focus for M2M going forwards.
GSM, VAL, LKE, MEK and M2M share prices today:
At Stockhead we tell it like it is. While Golden State Mining, Valor Resources, Lake Resources, Meeka Metals and Mt Malcolm Mines are Stockhead advertisers, they did not sponsor this article.