Barry FitzGerald: With gold prices climbing 2025 could be the year Antipa Minerals really shines

“Garimpeiro” columnist Barry FitzGerald has covered the resources industry for 35 years. Now he’s sharing the benefits of his experience with Stockhead readers.

Antipa Minerals (ASX:AZY) is coming up to its fifteenth anniversary on the ASX.

Over the years it has remained faithful to the big time potential of the remote Paterson province in Western Australia, but was an onlooker when Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO) made the big Winu copper/gold discovery and the London-listed Greatland made the big Havieron gold discovery in the region.

It has had its share of success though. The $10 million company, listed on the ASX back in April 2011, is now a $180 million company, one that is in its best ever financial position thanks to the recent sale of a secondary Paterson asset to Rio Tinto and a placement filling its cash kitty to the tune of $36.5 million.

Having said that, Garimpeiro reckons 2025 could well be Antipa’s breakout year thanks to the runaway Aussie gold price and the potential for some corporate machinations that could well lead to outside support for Antipa’s development ambitions, or a takeover bid for that matter.

Market recognition

The market is starting to recognise all of the above. Volumes in the stock are up noticeably since September-October last year and the share price has trickled to higher levels. It’s still a princely 3.3c most recently (shareholders vote on a share consolidation next month).

Putting aside the Paterson province machinations for a moment, Antipa should be on the radar of value seeking investors on the strength of the company’s Minyari Dome gold-copper project some 35km north of the now Greatland owned Telfer gold-copper mine and its hungry 22Mtpa treatment plant.

Minyari Dome is a sizeable and growing resource (2.3 million ounces of gold along with copper, silver and cobalt credits) which was robust at lower gold prices. But at current Aussie prices of close to $4400 an ounce it is a standout development opportunity, either as a standalone project or in a deal with Greatland on accessing the hungry Telfer mill.

That came through loud and clear in October’s updated scoping study on a standalone development, which envisaged average annual production for the first 10 years of 130,000oz.

Using a base case Aussie gold price of $3000 an ounce the post-tax net present value was put at $598 million, which means the current market cap of Antipa is about right. But plug in $4000 gold and the NPV takes off to $1.2 billion or a can’t be ignored $1.5 billion at $4500 gold, which looks to be in sight.

As suggested earlier, there seems to an awakening in the market to just how important Minyari Dome has become to Antipa. Given the impact of the record Aussie gold price on the project’s NPV, there should be no surprise in that.

Second awakening

The second awakening in regard to Antipa is the strategic appeal of Minyari Dome and the company’s other exploration projects across the Paterson, including exploration joint ventures where IGO (ASX:IGO) and Newmont Corporation (ASX:NEM) are picking up the bills.

It was Newmont that sold Telfer to Greatland last year along with its 70% interest in their 70:30% Havieron high-grade gold discovery – 55km to the west of Telfer – which Greatland is planning to produce its first gold from through the Telfer processing plant in the second half of 2027.

Greatland is owned 20.4% by Newmont following the Telfer/Havieron deal, and 8.5% by Andrew Forrest’s Wyloo. It now has an Aussie dollar market cap of $1.89 billion and is due to join the ASX list in the June quarter.

Havieron is very much the jewel in the crown for Greatland but at a planned mining rate of 2.85Mtpa it will not provide a long term solution to fully utilise Telfer’s processing capacity of more than 20Mtpa from two processing “trains”.

That’s why there is lots of chatter about Greatland using its firepower to make Minyari Dome its own. As it is, Greatland has said previously that as Telfer is the only operating plant in the Paterson with surplus capacity, “Telfer ‘enables a hub and spoke’ strategy to incorporate accretive regional opportunities.”

London broker Cavendish placed a 6c a share price target on Antipa in a December 20 note on a standalone (building its own mill at Minyari Dome has been priced at more than $300 million) sum-of-the-parts basis.

It said its price target was underpinned by a “solid asset on the development path, all with discovery upside re-rating potential and potential M&A exits that are now more in the spotlight.”

The views, information, or opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the columnist and do not represent the views of Stockhead. Stockhead does not provide, endorse or otherwise assume responsibility for any financial product advice contained in this article.

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