Barry FitzGerald: Small gold explorers on the money and ready to drill

Price strength is finally rubbing off on the ASX-listed gold producers. But the explorers continue to be left behind.

It makes sense given that while the producers are minting cash, the explorers are chewing through their reserves in the hope of finding something they can mine.

The good news there is that when an explorer does make a decent discovery the share price reward is going to be much bigger than it would have been when gold was at sub-$US2000/oz levels.

All that is why Garimpeiro reckons there is value to be had in the exploration space. As always, the focus should be on the people running the show, the location of the projects, and the ability to be active in the field thanks to a healthy cash balance.

He came up with two names during the week – Solstice Minerals and Ordell Minerals. Both are relative newbies on the ASX but have decades of experience behind them.

Another common factor is a certain savviness shown by management in previous roles, being able to monetise discoveries that were not quite big enough to become standalone developments to fund the hunt for the big one.

That had a lot to do with the location of the exploration ground being in close proximity to established infrastructure and milling capacity, making it easier for sensible deals to be done.

The same rings true this time around for Solstice and Ordell.

SOLSTICE MINERALS (ASX:SLS)

Trading at 18.5c (mid-week) for a market cap of $18.5 million, which is pretty much covered by its cash position of $17.5m. So it can be said there is pure leverage with this one to exploration success.

Solstice came to the market in May 2021 when it was demerged from OreCorp, which itself was taken over by Perseus for $270m.

Its near 100% cash-backing is a result of it holding residual funds from its IPO and its sale earlier this year of its 80% stake in the Hobbes gold deposit (177,000oz) for $10m to Northern Star (ASX:NST) for incorporation at the latter’s Carosue Dam gold camp.

Solstice is led by managing director Nick Castleden, who was previously the main man at Apollo Consolidated which was taken over by the ever acquisitive Ramelius Resources (ASX:RMS) in 2021 for $181m after finding more than 1Moz under cover.

All up, directors and management have been involved in five companies which were acquired for $2 billion after moving up the value curve from discovery to the resource drill out stage. It reflects a commercial bent often absent in successful explorers.

The company’s flagship Yarri project covers a big ground position straddling the Keith-Kilkenny the Laverton tectonic zones which are home to big gold mining operations/deposits to the north and south.

Solstice’s particular focus is finding new deposits hidden beneath transported soil cover, hopefully big enough to become standalone mining operations. If not quite big enough, there are plenty of hungry mills in the region operated by others that could do a Hobbes-type deal.

The Yarri project area has a collection of advanced gold targets and more greenfields types. Earlier this week Solstice reported a nice hit of 10m grading 3.61g/t at the Bunjarra prospect, which is in the greenfields category.

The company said the hit confirmed Bunjarra as a genuine bedrock target that warrants immediate reverse circulation drilling to identify the underlying resh-rock mineralisation. It is planning a big December quarter spinning the drill bit across a number of targets.

ORDELL MINERALS (ASX:ORD)

Trading at 23.5c (mid-week) for a market cap of $12m, it only joined the ASX lists in July in a $6m IPO at 20c a share. So it still has a handy cash position to get cracking at its flagship Barimaia project in the Murchison region of WA.

It is another one with the ground position and right rocks to come up with a discovery big enough to become a standalone development and/or for the discovery to be acquired by a regional treatment plant owner, of which there are plenty.

Barimaia sits adjacent to Ramelius’ Mount Magnet mill.

Ordell has just reported assay results from its maiden drilling program. It was wide-spaced stuff, the idea being to get a first-pass test along the interpreted strike of the felsic host rock.

The drilling returned wide zones of shallow gold mineralisation which Ordell managing director Michael Fowler said demonstrated “clear potential at Barimaia to define a large and extensive gold system with shallow open pit potential.”

Fowler was also “very excited” that results from the McNabs East prospect suggested the presence of a granodiorite intrusion, suggesting “strong similarities” to the geology at Ramelius’ nearby Eridanus deposit.

Eridanus has a mineral resource estimate of 1.2Moz with more than 300,000oz already mined from an open pit.

Fowler has enjoyed success with the drill bit before having previously been part of the founding team at Genesis Minerals (ASX:GMD) which made gold discoveries in the Leonora district. They provided the launchpad for Genesis to become Raleigh Finlayson’s new gold push post Saracen/Northern Star.

Ordell’s 80% interest in Barimaia was acquired from Fowler’s old firm of Genesis, an 8% shareholder.