Monsters of Rock: A yellow letter day for battling gold miners

It was a good day to be yellow as gold miners led the gains among the ASX 300 miners.

There have been some dark days for hunters of the precious metal this year, with equities sliding as prices have floated listlessly in 2021.

But a weak day for tech stocks in the US overnight and economic uncertainty around China’s property market are some of the factors that have pulled investors back into the safe haven commodity.

De Grey Mining (ASX:DEG) was the main bolter, stunning with its scoping study at Hemi, the first major study into the world class gold discovery.

Its shares soared by almost 10% as it revealed the mine would produce as much as 473,000ozpa over its first five year and 4.3Moz over an initial 10-year mine life.

It finally puts some hard numbers around the enthusiasm surrounding the 6.8Moz Hemi deposit, which has turned De Grey from a penny stock into a billion dollar company over the past 18 months.

The mine shapes as the third largest new gold mine in the world.

Gold limits losses for materials

Gold producers joined coal and uranium stocks in the good books for resources investors as the big iron ore miners fell slightly into the red, stemming the Materials index’s losses to 0.26%.

Northern Star Resources (ASX:NST) was up ~3.5%, making it the top performing stock among the large caps outside of Woodside (ASX:WPL).

2021 battlers Regis Resources (ASX:RRL), Gold Road Resources (ASX:GOR) and Ramelius Resources (ASX:RMS) were all among the top companies in the mid-tier space, rubbing shoulders with (presently) hot stocks like Yancoal (ASX:YAL), Whitehaven Coal(ASX:WHC) and ERA (ASX:ERA).

KALIUM LAKES (ASX:KLL)

Finally, we have our first Australian sulphate of potash producer, after Kalium Lakes announced the milestone at its Beyondie project in the Pilbara.

It came after Salt Lake Potash (ASX:SO4), which promised to cross the finish line first, ran into commissioning issues in recent months at its Lake Way project.

Kalium Lakes CEO Rudolph van Niekerk delivered this commentary.

“Kalium Lakes has delivered another major milestone for the Beyondie SOP Project, producing its first SOP seven years after the Company was founded in September 2014,” he said.

“It has been a remarkable journey to reach this stage and we thank everyone who has contributed to the success of the project during the past seven years, particularly our long-term shareholders, management team and employees.

“We have always said that it was not a race and we were focused on getting it right rather than being first, but in the end we have been fortunate to achieve both!”