Shares in major miners faltered on Monday with the Materials sector the biggest laggard on the ASX with a 2.44% drop.
The ASX200 lost 0.85%, finishing the day on 7286 points.
Evolution Mining (ASX: EVN) was comfortably the worst performer, losing almost 10 per cent of its value as investors continued to digest a disappointing quarterly report.
Northern Star Resources (ASX: NST), Lynas (ASX: LYC) and South32 (ASX: S32) were also in the red while BHP (ASX: BHP) lost $1.37 (2.64%) to slide from the all time high it enjoyed last week.
Still, there were a handful of winners who were able to swim against the tide on a negative day for the sector as a whole.
PERENTI GLOBAL (ASX: PRN)
Between Covid-19 restrictions and labour shortages, the last few months have been a slog for Perenti Global, the lovechild of Ron Sayers’ Ausdrill and Peter Bartlett’s Barminco.
Some good news for the mining services stock today with AngloGold Ashanti (ASX:AGG) awarding a consortium of it and Ghanaian contractor MAXMASS a $470 million contract on the South African gold giant’s Iduapriem mine.
Perenti’s 60% share of the contract via its African Mining Services subsidiary will fetch it around $280 million in forward work.
The company was knocked out of the ASX200 in the last rebalance, and is down around 25% over the past 12 months.
But it has risen steadily from 12 month lows in mid-June of 64c and enjoyed a more than 2% gain to 88c today on the Iduapriem news.
Perenti has also recently secured contracts at Panoramic Resources (ASX:PAN) Savannah Nickel Mine, Anglo’s Geita, Sandfire Resources (ASX:SFR) Motheo gold mine and a letter of intent with Newcrest Mining (ASX:NCM) at the Red Chris mine in Canada.
Perenti Global share price today:
ZIMPLATS HOLDINGS (ASX: ZIM)
The Zimbabwean platinum miner was one of the few mid and large cap miners to prosper, recording a 2.2% gain on thin volumes.
The $2.4 billion company has had nothing to report since its March quarterly, when it produced 63326oz of platinum, 53425oz of palladium, 7584oz of gold, 5514oz of rhodium, 4958oz of ruthenium and 2286oz of iridium, along with a smattering of silver, nickel, copper and cobalt from its operations.
Its Ngwarati mine was due to return to full production at the end of June after a fatal injury at the mine in February temporarily shut operations.
Zimplats share price today:
IGO (ASX: IGO)
Battery metals major IGO actually tracked the market to close down today but its exploration team brought plenty of joy for investors in junior Carawine Resources (ASX:CWX).
Carawine was up around 7% on news IGO had identified two EM conductors more than 300m below surface around 30km south of the world class Nova Nickel Mine.
IGO is spending around $40 million on the Fraser Range to find a repeat of the Nova discovery, a large amount of that on farm in ground initially held by juniors.
Carawine owns 30% of the Red Bull prospect.
IGO is funding an exploration campaign this financial year to earn up its stake in the JV from 70 to 76% with diamond drilling planned at the Red Bull targets in the December Quarter.