Monsters of Rock: NRW up on contract news, Pilbara Minerals recovers and Tietto strikes high grade gold

NRW Holdings (ASX:NWH) shares rose today on news it had received a major five-year mining contract on the Karara Iron Ore Mine in WA’s Mid West.

Karara is one of two large magnetite operations in WA along with the Sino Iron operation both operated by Chinese interests.

The high grade operation has a mine life of more than 30 years, with NRW’s contract earning the mining services provider a $702 million order over its five year life starting in March 2022.

“NRW is an established West Australian based mining and civil contractor with extensive open cut mining experience gained through a number of successful mining operations in the state. Offering new prime equipment, NRW has the capability to undertake the entire Karara scope of work comprising a broad range of mining, construction and engineering services. We look forward to commencement of mining services early next year,” Karara CEO Changjiang Zhu said.

It is a good news story for NRW, which has suffered the wrath of shareholders in 2021 amid weak sentiment for mining services contractors, losing 44% of its value year to date.

NRW Holdings share price today:

Tietto toasts high grades at Abujar

Tietto Minerals (ASX:TIE) shares moved more than 7% hgiher after the African mine builder disclosed a hit of 3m at 79.78g/t gold from infill drilling at its 3.35Moz Abujar gold mine.

It raises the prospect of improvements to its resource ahead of the start of production in the fourth quarter of 2022 at the mine in the Ivory Coast.

Tietto is trying to infill its indicated resource of 35Mt at 1.5g/t for 1.65Moz to convert it to a measured resource, in a bid to de-Invesrisk the first two years of operations at Abujar.

The mine is expected to deliver 260,000oz of gold in its first year of operations and 200,000ozpa over the first six years.

Assays for 84 drill holes totalling more than 18,000m of core are expected in January, with six diamond drill rigs active onsite ahead of a resource update in the March quarter.

“Our seventh batch of results from our infill drilling program at AG Core has delivered more high‐grade gold intercepts that will de‐risk open pit mining at Abujar,” Tietto managing director Caigen Wang said.

“Our infill program is designed to convert Indicated Resources to Measured Resources, which are scheduled to be mined within the first two years of production.”

Tietto Minerals share price today:

Pilbara rebounds as materials sags to 0.34% loss

Investors in Pilbara Minerals (ASX:PLS) bought the dip, responding to a disappointing production announcement yesterday by sending the stock soaring 8.76%.

It came after big losses yesterday as Pilbara Minerals revealed it would significantly miss guidance in the December quarter and FY22 financial year, blaming labour shortages and supply chain pressures.

Lithium was key to the big news stories of the day as Rio piled US$825 million into the purchase of the Rincon Mining business in Argentina.

Disclosures late yesterday on the ASX also showed Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting had sold around $10.2 million worth of shares on market in Vulcan Energy (ASX:VUL), reducing her stake from 6.74% at her last substantial shareholder notice to 5.64%.