One of Australia’s top mining journalists, Kristie Batten writes for Stockhead every week in her regular column placing a watchful eye on the movers and shakers of the small cap resources scene.

Shares in Caprice Resources (ASX:CRS) have more than doubled in the past month after the company reported high-grade gold hits from its Island gold project in Western Australia’s Murchison region.

Last month, the market sat up and took notice after Caprice reported a 1m intercept of 34.9 grams per tonne gold from its Island gold project.

Other hits included 28m at 6.4g/t gold from 114m, including 12m at 7.8g/t and 4m at 16.4 g/t; 27m at 3g/t gold from 48m, including 4m at 4.9g/t and 5m at 6.9g/t.

Caprice had been focused on copper, gold and niobium in the West Arunta but when Luke Cox joined the company as CEO in mid-2024, he reviewed the company’s tenure.

The company already held the Murchison project and its potential was clear to Cox.

“This is in the guts of the Murchison. It’s on mining leases. It’s not as if you’re exploring for gold. There’s actually gold on the tenement,” he told Stockhead.

“This is prime territory. To the north, it’s all Westgold, to the south, it’s Ramelius, and there’s known gold here.”

When the geologists hit the ground, they found quartz reefs and visible gold.

“The geology is identical to the Cuddingwarra mining district, which it runs parallel to,” Cox said.

The project also features the more advanced New Orient project is at the north of the project, where Caprice will undertake a scoping study.

In November, Caprice released an exploration target for New Orient and Island of 4-5 million tonnes at 1.5-1.9g/t gold for 200,000-300,000 ounces of gold.

Cox described New Orient as a near-term pit that could provide early ounces, but the main focus for the company now was Island.

The geology at Island is similar to the high-grade Break of Day deposit, which was acquired by Ramelius Resources (ASX:RMS) via a $200 million takeover of Musgrave Minerals in 2023.

“The great thing I like is it’s pretty simple geology,” he said.

“You drill the banded iron formation, when you see quartz in the banded iron formation, we almost get a 100% hit ratio that has gold in it.”

The company is awaiting results for about 30 holes, which are due any day now.

 

More work planned

Cox was on site last week as part of the planning process for the next round of drilling.

“There’s going to be a smattering of exploration stab holes and we’ll drill beneath some of these historical workings,” Cox said.

“There’s going to be resource development drilling, so drilling what we’ve already drilled, just before Christmas, to extend them along strike and to depth.”

The company is also planning resource development drilling at New Orient and deeper drilling at Vadrians Hill to follow up last month’s high-grade results.

Cox said Caprice would aim to drill 5000m every second month.

“There’ll be a rig turning up at the end of this month, and then it would drill through April, but during this month, I’m getting assays back,” he said.

“So there’s always news turning out, but you always need the assays to come back to plan your next step as you go through, because I don’t want to go in there with a shotgun approach and blow a whole heap of cash, because it’s very specific.

“If you look at Break of Day, the actual width of the ore zone was only 100m – you could easily miss it.”

The early exercise of unlisted options last month raised $1.54 million, boosting Caprice’s cash balance to around $4 million.

Earlier this month, East Coast Research initiated coverage of Caprice but without a price target given the early stage nature of the company’s projects.

“However, given the diverse portfolio of strategically located projects targeting commodities with strong demand growth, we see significant upside potential beyond the company’s current valuation,” analyst Sasha Seaton said.

“The upcoming news flow on the additional drilling results from the IGP, with high potential for future discoveries along the 5km of prospective strike targeting untested structures of which seven have already been identified as identical to Vadrians but remain untested by drilling, and the potential release of a mineral resource estimate in CY2025 could be catalysts for stock re-rating.

“Additional updates on exploration activities at the West Arunta project could provide further catalysts for significant stock appreciation.”

 

 

At Stockhead, we tell it like it is. While Caprice Resources is a Stockhead advertiser, it did not sponsor this article.

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