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Mining
Gold miners and previously rampaging lithium stocks suffered big losses but Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO) helped limit the hit to the big miners as iron ore futures rallied.
Rio gained 0.24% after rising higher intra-day to buck the trend across the majors, with Fortescue (ASX:FMG) copping a 1.49% hit and BHP (ASX:BHP) down 0.3% despite a reasonable quarterly production update.
Dalian iron ore futures for May rallied almost 5% to US$116.50/t while February Singapore futures rose 2.89% to US$130.65/t.
The heat came out of lithium stocks who have rampaged higher in recent months on persistently rising prices for the battery commodity.
Pilbara Minerals (ASX:PLS) shed 3.63% to fall 14c from record highs to $3.72 while Allkem (ASX:AKE) was off 6.07% or 70.5c to $10.90 after gaining on big price upgrades for its spodumene and lithium carbonate in an update yesterday.
Gold miners were hard hit as a slight drop in the gold price, strong US dollar and potential rate rises weighed on the outlook for precious metals.
Northern Star (ASX:NST) fell ahead of its quarterly results tomorrow, down 3.63% to $8.75.
Materials was down 1.02% at the market close, inline with the broader ASX.
Mark Clark’s Capricorn Metals (ASX:CMM) was an outlier, up 0.6% after announcing an impressive start to commercial production at the Karlawinda gold mine in the Pilbara.
In just its second quarter of production Capricorn produced 30,316oz of gold at all in sustaining costs of $1048/oz, selling 30,835oz at an average price of $2397/oz.
It has so far delivered 54,645oz, putting the company on track to hit its guidance of 110,000-120,000oz in FY22 as Karlawinda continues in steady state production.
Capricorn has already started eating into its debt, repaying $10m in the quarter to reduce its bank debt to $75m and lowering net debt by $25.3m to $45m as of December 31.
$1.2 billion capped Lake Resources (ASX:LKE) was in the winner’s circle after the Steve Promnitz led company confirmed plans to nearly double the proposed run rate of its Kachi lithium project from 25,500tpa to 50,000tpa.
The updated target will be used in an upcoming DFS on the Kachi project and reflects the growing supply gap in the lithium market as battery and EV production and sales continue to spike.
“Given the increasing demand and the significant lithium supply gap, Lake is focused on delivering high purity lithium carbonate at scale with meaningful ESG benefits,” managing director Steve Promnitz said.
“Lake has received indicative financial support for an increase in the size of the Kachi project from the Export Credit Agencies (ECAs) of the UK and Canada and the numerous international ECA-supported banks.
“Also, Lake’s technology partner, Lilac Solutions, is focused on advancing the Kachi Project at this larger scale.”
Lake shares were up 3.68% or 3.5c to 98.5c.
At Stockhead, we tell it like it is. While Lake Resources is a Stockhead advertiser, it did not sponsor this article.
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