Niobium's working its magic on West Arunta explorers

Critical minerals darling WA1 Resources (ASX:WA1) was originally hunting for deep iron oxide copper-gold (IOCG) deposits in 2022 when it stumbled upon high-grade niobium in fresh rock in one of the most remote and least populated parts of Australia.

While it was often touted as ‘something special’ due to its lightly explored but highly mineralised nature, few explorers were able to spend much time and effort in the region given the sheer distance (+3,000km from Perth).

Yet within two years from discovery in an entirely greenfield belt, WA1 not only managed to find the most significant niobium discovery in 70 years but managed to attract investors who deem the project as good enough to warrant a $1.4b market cap. That’s an 8,395% re-rate on its listing price of $0.20c in February 2022.

In the hopes to piggbyback off the experience of WA1, many juniors have flocked to the West Arunta with the belief that their success might bring about knock-on effects – both from an investor interest perspective and in terms of opening the area up for further exploration.

We take look at some of those companies uncovering hidden treasures beneath the spinifex of the Gibson Desert that have experienced a re-rating off their discoveries.

West Arunta explorers

Encounter Resources (ASX:ENR), owners of the Aileron critical minerals project which surrounds WA1’s tenements, re-rated last month following exploration in the West Arunta.

The company drilled its first hole at Aileron back in 2020 when it was in a joint venture with Newcrest Mining (ASX:NCM) and has been advancing it ever since with gravity, magnetics, and radiometric surveys collecting the datasets needed to take it forward.

Shares in the stock rose 78% last month after drilling results uncovered niobium grades similar to star performer, WA1, with a standout 16m intersection containing 6% niobium only 15km northwest of Luni.

ENR’s market cap has jumped from ~$40m in 2022 to ~$308.8m today.

Rincon Resources’ (ASX:RCR) shares price jumped some 80% back in April after it unearthed a bullseye target, now called Avalon, at its West Arunta project.

The target is of character similar to WA1’s Luni carbonatite showing similar E-W elongation, rhombic-shape, size and lack of a well-defined coincident magnetic anomaly.

It, too, has seen a re-rate in its market cap from $6m in 2022 to $34.60m today with 3,000m of reverse circulation drilling now underway to test the Avalon, Sheoak, K1 and K2 targets, supported by a Western Australian Government’s EIS co-funding grant of $180,000.

CGN Resources (ASX:CGR) listed on the ASX in October 2023 following a $10m oversubscribed IPO with the Webb project under its wing, which includes the Tantor prospect.

It rounded out 2023 with the completion of a heritage survey to establish access routes and clear the sites for ground-based geophysics programs and deeper drilling in 2024.

The wave CGR rode to the bourse was largely off the back of the Luni niobium discovery and while it would be happy with a niobium company maker if that’s what transpires, it is more keen on the original reason explorers flocked to the remote and underexplored region originally — IOCG targets that reminded geos of OZ Minerals’ famous Prominent Hill mine in South Australia.

And shares in Lycaon Resources (ASX:LYN) soared in early-May after it announced a $2.5m raise through a placement to new and existing investors for planned exploration programs at the Stanmore niobium-REE project.

In conjunction to the raising, LYN has received $180,000 in funding as part of the WA government’s Exploration Incentive Scheme (EIS) to carry out drilling.

Drilling will target a regionally prominent 700m long magnetic feature (Stanmore) as well as a larger ~3km wide magnetic anomaly (Volt).

NWM sets out on niobium venture

It might still be early days for Norwest Minerals (ASX:NWM) but the $11.53m market cap stock has raised $2.5m via a capital raising this week to fund the drill testing of multiple critical mineral targets across the large Malibu, Duck and Tamba prospects at the Arunta West project.

The project – just to the south of WA1 – hosts similar rocks to Luni with all targets situated on granted land access agreements.

Malibu is a 5km fold system hosting high-gravity and variable magnetics crosscut by major fault structures, and coincident to several IOCG geochemical anomalies.

Over at Duck, a 5km east-west trending belt of high gravity and variable magnetics is intersected by niobium, lithium, and IOCG geochemical anomalies.

Meanwhile, the 3km x 1.5km Tamba copper-gold-in-soils anomaly is located at the eastern extent of the company’s 1500km West Arunta ground package.

The discovery NWM needed

In an interview with Stockhead NWM CEO Charles Schaus says WA1 was the discovery the company needed.

“It’s brought investment, interest and focus into the West Arunta region,” he says.

“While we haven’t been swamped with the same attention yet, we believe our targets are fundamentally better than any of those that were drilled by WA1.

“The reason being is we’ve got the good gravity results like they have, we have good magnetics like they had, we have the good structures but also, we have the soil sampling work that we have done back in 2022,” he says.

“From those results you can see what elements are in those soil samples and the anomalies we got from those actually match up with our gravity targets as well as our structural targets so we’re very, very excited about drill testing.”

The funds will be used to undertake a 120-hole aircore drilling program across Arunta West and advance the company’s Bulgera Gold and Bali Copper projects.

At Stockhead we tell it like it is. While Norwest Minerals and Lycaon Resources are Stockhead advertisers, they did not sponsor this article.