High Voltage: 12 big-bagger battery metals stocks in the past year, with many more banging at the door

Our High Voltage column wraps all the news driving ASX stocks with exposure to lithium, cobalt, graphite, nickel, rare earths and vanadium.

Fun fact: There have been a dozen +11-bagger ASX battery metal stocks over the past 12 months.

They are:

Vulcan Energy (ASX:VUL) +3540%

Province Resources (ASX:PRL) +3296%

Chalice Mining (ASX:CHN) +3042%

Renascor Resources (ASX:RNU) +2700%

Pursuit Minerals (ASX:PUR) +2619%

Piedmont Lithium (ASX:PLL) +1575%

European Metals (ASX:EMH) +1285%

Vital Metals (ASX:VML) +1133%

Core Lithium (ASX:CXO) +1071%

Ecograf (ASX:EGR) +1067%

Lake Resources (ASX:LKRE) +1021%, and

Mandrake Resources (ASX:MAN) +1015%

A bunch more are knocking on the door as this sweeping battery metals recovery continues apace.

Last week 61 stocks on our list went up, 38 went down, and 20 didn’t move.

Here’s how a basket of ASX stocks with exposure to lithium, cobalt, graphite, nickel, rare earths and vanadium are performing>>>

Scroll or swipe to reveal table. Click headings to sort. Best viewed on a laptop:

WEEKLY SMALL CAP STANDOUTS

RENASCOR RESOURCES (ASX:RNU) +59%

This long suffering graphite explorer has come good in a big way this year.

Renascor’s ~950% YTD surge was sparked by the promising business case for its vertically integrated Siviour graphite project in South Australia, and improved battery metals sentiment more generally.

The Siviour graphite deposit is the world’s second largest proven reserve (high confidence) and the largest reserve outside of Africa.

Favourable location and geology will allow Renascor to produce graphite concentrate at globally low-cost, the company says.

AUSTRALIAN VANADIUM (ASX:AVL) +37%

Is vanadium turning a corner? Prices for the flow battery and steel ingredient have hit +$US8/lb in China and are up 17.8% over the last month in Western Europe:

Ferro-#Vanadium prices up 17.8% over the last month to $32.31-32.76/kgV in Western Europe

A strong V-shaped recovery is expected in the global economy in 2021, following the shrinkage seen in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic

This is expected to support #Steel demand & prices pic.twitter.com/BHjf9LCdfl

— Michael Bond (@MichaelBond_SP) March 16, 2021

Meanwhile, the US Department of Energy says that flow batteries are “good for grid storage” as it announced funding to support domestic manufacturing for the energy storage technology.

Flows batteries use a lot of vanadium.

AVL — which has persistently advanced its work programs during the not-so great times — now has one of the world’s most advanced vanadium projects, right here in WA.

SAYONA MINING (ASX:SYA) +32%

It’s been strong news flow for busy Canadian lithium play Sayona over the past few weeks.

An updated technical report on its Tansim lithium project in Québec confirms that “the project’s exploration potential remains high and that the potential to increase the size of the currently modelled pegmatites, which remain open laterally and at depth, is also high”.

Project‐wide exploration planned to test for new spodumene pegmatites and to complement resource drilling at the ‘Viau‐Dallaire’ and ‘Viau’ prospects will kick off as part of the 2021 exploration season

Sayona says Tansim is a key growth component for Sayona’s Québec lithium hub development, complementing the flagship Authier project “and offering potential synergies with North American Lithium (NAL)” – which it is currently bidding for.

ANSON RESOURCES (ASX:ASN) +21%

This lithium/nickel-copper-PGE explorer has bolted out of the gate in 2021, gaining ~221 per cent year-to-date.

Its main game is the advanced Paradox lithium brine project in the United States, which is ostensibly benefitting from the Biden administration’s strong focus on building a local battery materials supply chain.

Recent testing suggests the quality of Anson’s lithium works better than the “commercially available Tier 1 products currently used in the production of high-performance lithium-ion batteries”, the explorer says.

Due to the success of the initial test work and its findings, Anson is proceeding with a larger bulk sample test work program over the next several months.

The final test report should be provided in Q2 2021, it says.

PAN ASIA METALS (ASX:PAM) +18%

This newly listed tungsten and lithium explorer is one of analyst Gavin Wendt’s top 5 picks in ‘Build your own lithium portfolio’.

Lithium is flying. Meanwhile, the price of ferro-tungsten — an alloy of iron (under 30 per cent) and tungsten (over 70 per cent) — just hit one-year highs on tight supply.

Drilling at Pan Asia’s Khao Soon Tungsten Project (KSTP) in Thailand recently returned a large number of intersections at greater than 0.5 per cent WO3, including 7.5m at 1.22 per cent WO3.

These are peer group leading results, managing director Paul Lock said February 24.

“Further to our results it is pleasing to see the general buoyancy in the APT market, which is the reference price for tungsten,” he says.

“Fastmarkets MB recently reported that the APT price was $25,000-25,500 per tonne, the highest level since 2019.

“According to commentators the market is up due to tightness in the scrap and raw materials market and the demand side of the market is faced with the prospect that several large Chinese and Russian mines are reaching the end of their respective lives.

“We believe Khao Soon will be one of the few new tungsten projects with the potential to work in the current price environment.”

>>> Lithium, graphite, cobalt, rare earths, vanadium or nickel stocks missing from our list? Email [email protected]