• Resource on the way in next month at Alkane Resources’ Boda porphyry discovery
  • The gold miner’s share price is up 63% over the past year, beating the ASX All Ords gold index five times over
  • Materials slumps as base metals prices fall and South32 falters

 

Alkane Resources (ASX:ALK) is that rarest of breeds, a gold miner who has enjoyed a booming share price over the past 12 months.

While other miners were seeing their market caps tumble as sentiment turned against the precious metals sector, Alkane has been writing itself into investors’ good books.

Alkane shares are up 26.67% year to date and almost 63% over the past 12 months, giving the 53 year old company a market cap of $679 million.

By comparison the ASX All Ords gold index is up 12.39% over the past year.

The reason is not just its Tomingley gold mine, though the modest New South Wales operation has been a decent performer, helping Alkane bank a 250% rise in after tax profits to $58.231 million in the first half of 2021-22.

The buzz is coming from the large Boda porphyry discovery at the Northern Molong project, discovered in a drill hole containing 502m of porphyry mineralisation at 0.48g/t Au and 0.20% Cu from 211m in September 2019.

Now two and a half years later Alkane is ready to finally post a long-awaited mineral resource after subsequent drill hits containing up to 900m of large low grade copper-gold mineralisation.

 

Resource due in April

Alkane says its maiden resource for the central zone at Boda will be completed in April, centred around a 500m by 300m breccia stock within a larger mineralised alteration zone.

It remains open to the north-west and at depth, with recent assays including 361m at 0.27g/t gold and 0.15% copper from 719.7m deep, 210.8m at 0.26g/t gold and 0.14% copper and 664m at 0.23g/t gold, 0.11% copper from surface.

Even after the upcoming resource estimate Boda-Kaiser is likely to get bigger. Initial broad spaced drilling of about 30,000m has been completed at the Boda Two and Three targets as well.

Alkane MD Nic Earner called the completion of the resource drilling program a “major milestone”.

““We have a significant volume of data to work with, which will allow us to finalise the initial Boda resource in April,” he said.

“We are also well advanced in a shallower drilling program at Kaiser-Duke that may enable an initial resource to be confirmed there.

“Alkane is planning further drilling in the northwest corridor of the Boda-Kaiser-Duke complex and will also be targeting higher grade zones at Boda Two and Three, once we receive our latest results.

“We look forward to discussing the initial Boda resource with investors shortly.”

 

Alkane Resources (ASX:ALK) share price today:

 

 

Russia-Ukraine talks, South32 sink miners

Materials stocks fell 0.37% and energy 0.72% as Russian talks with Ukraine overnight eased supply fears for commodities like aluminium.

The talks ended with no real outcomes, but base metals were down across the board, with aluminium prices falling 4.9% to US$3436/t, nickel down 2.8% to US31,803/t and zinc off 1.5% to US$4027/t.

South32 (ASX:S32), which is on the cusp of the ASX 20 group of companies was off nearly 4% after announcing delays to a deal to up its stake in the Mozal aluminium smelter in Mozambique.

Read MoreGoldGold NewsGold StocksLarge Cap

You might be interested in