Resources Rising Stars returns to the Goldie as gold booms, copper shines and uranium heats up

The Resources Rising Stars conference on the Gold Coast is back this month with a two-day event, bringing together more than 50 resources companies focused on growth and discovery. 

The 22nd annual Resources Rising Stars Gold Coast Conference is on the horizon, set to kick off over two days on Wednesday September 17 and Thursday September 18 at the RACV Royal Pines Resort in Benowa.

Featuring 51 established and up-and-coming ASX-listed resource companies, the conference is a great opportunity for investors to chat face-to-face in a relaxed setting with the management teams behind the company logos.

While financial markets have been showing signs of recovery, Perth-based boutique investor relations consultancy Read Corporate has been busy curating a selection of some of the most exciting junior ASX explorers with the vision and momentum to bring their projects to fruition.

And as always, one of the event’s highlights will be its keynote addresses from well-respected names connected to the industry. This year, Bell Potter’s Grady Wulff, Lion Selection Group’s Hedley Widdup and Stephen Koukoulas, leading economist and senior economic adviser to the Prime Minister, will all be grabbing the mic.

To top off that list of luminaries, one of the mining industry’s biggest exploration names, Tim Goyder, will be there to tell his new gold story – Minerals260 (ASX:MI6) – with the Liontown Resources heavyweight looking to achieve another major success from his mining stable.

Read Corporate executive director Nicholas Read said there is a positive feeling in the air this year ahead of the conference, after an extended period of uncertainty for financial markets.

“We’ve been through booms and bust over the years, but with interest rates coming down, increasing risk appetite and two commodities at record highs … it feels like we might be on the cusp of a new mining cycle,” he said.

As good as gold

Gold has had an incredible bull run in recent years, moving from strength to strength as global instability and geopolitical conflict drives investors to the ancient safe haven.

Spurred by COVID-19’s world-wide disruptions, ongoing wars and catalysed by an upending of long-established trade and diplomatic relationships with the US, gold has rocketed to all-time highs.

Both spot prices and futures for the precious metal have seen incredible growth. Spot prices hit US$3560 an ounce at time of writing, an eye-popping +39% gain in just one year.

And gold isn’t the only precious metal on an absolute tear – silver is also surging, with spot prices climbing 45% over the same year period to just over US$41 an ounce.

ASX explorers and developers have been riding the precious metal wave higher, benefiting from a falling US dollar and improving access to financial investment.

“Gold is where the money is being raised and it’s obviously where the weight of investor sentiment lies at the moment,” Read said.

“We’ve got everything from greenfield, early-stage explorers like Flynn Gold, Ordell and Solstice all the way through to emerging mid-tiers, like Gorilla Gold, Saturn and Astral.”

Flynn Gold’s (ASX:FG1) main focus is the Golden Ridge gold project in Tasmania, where the company is pursuing an exploration target of between 449koz and 520koz across three of 15 potential gold prospects, accounting for only 30% of a 9-kilometre-long gold zone.

Most recently, FG1 confirmed the gold mineralisation across its Trafalgar Main, Magazine and South Zone prospects, which form one continuous gold zone, and identified a new 275-metre-long gold discovery just 1km from the main Trafalgar prospect.

It’s still early days, without an official mineral resource estimate to point to as yet, but the project is showing a lot of promise.

On the other end of the spectrum, Astral Resources (ASX:AAR) is building out multi-decade mining potential at its emerging Mandilla gold camp after merging with Maximus Resources to combine gold inventories.

Backed up by a group resource of 1.76Moz, Mandilla’s pre-feasibility study – released in June – promises at least 18.5 years of mine life, potentially producing 1.41Moz of gold over that period.

In contrast, Gorilla Gold (ASX:GG8) has consolidated a portfolio of gold assets in WA’s Eastern Goldfields, where it holds four separate projects with a global JORC mineral resource of 953koz at 4.4 g/t gold.

The Lakeview and Vivien Gold projects were relatively underexplored before Gorilla put boots to ground, while the Comet Vale project produced more than 200koz of gold at more than 20 g/t historically.

GG8 is aggressively advancing exploration across its portfolio, with 150,000 metres of drilling planned and five drill rigs operating at Comet Vale ahead of a mineral resource upgrade scheduled for the fourth quarter.

Copper keeps it real

While precious metals are having their moment in the sun, the market bellwether of copper is also quietly gaining steam.

“While copper hasn’t been quite as exciting as gold, we’ve seen some pretty amazing takeovers this year, like New World and Xanadu,” Read noted.

New World Resources was acquired for $250 million after a bidding war between Kinterra Capital and Central Asia Metals, while Bastion Mining acquired Xanadu Mines for $160 million with backing from Xanadu’s major shareholder, Zijin Mining.

There’s also been some sizeable price movements among smaller companies, with Coda Minerals (ASX:COD) surging more than 70% over the past five days to 14c a share after releasing a revised processing flow sheet.

The increased recoveries boosted COD’s life of mine production estimates from 384,000t of copper and 16Moz of silver to 454,000t of copper and 20Moz of silver while also improving IRR and NPV and reducing capital expenditure by $74m.

At the other end of the pecking order, 29 Metals (ASX:29M) is already producing gold, copper and zinc from fully permitted projects deep into development.

The company’s optimisation and long-term infrastructure builds are nearing completion at the Golden Grove project, which holds a mineral resource of 53.8Mt at 1.7% copper and 0.7 g/t gold and ore reserves of 16.5Mt at 1.6% copper and 0.7 g/t gold.

29 Metals expects to bring a new front at Golden Grove, the Gossan Valley project, into production by the second half of 2026.

Gossan Valley is projected to have a six-year mine life at a mining rate of 585,000 tonnes per year, with two separate mineral resources of 5.6Mt at 1.1% copper, 5.5% zinc, 0.6 g/t gold and 18 g/t silver and 1.7Mt at 1.1% copper, 6.5% zinc, 0.5 g/t gold and 15 g/t silver.

Uranium market headed for supply deficit

The other hot commodity gaining a lot of attention in recent months is uranium.

As governments pivot toward cleaner energy sources and data centres demand localised power options, nuclear is becoming an ever-more attractive option.

The World Nuclear Association’s 2024 World Uranium Mining Production report revealed a widening gap between uranium production (58,000 tonnes) and reactor requirements (67,000 tonnes).

China alone has more than 50 nuclear reactors under construction and intends to build more than 150 before 2035.

At present, models are predicting a one-billion-pound supply shortfall will develop over the next 15 years, if more uranium production isn’t brought into play.

“Every other day we are seeing more and more analysts predicting a strong lift in uranium pricing, driven by a structural deficit in uranium supply,” Greenvale Energy (ASX:GRV) CEO Alex Cheeseman said.

“There is a huge build out of new nuclear energy utilities going on and at the same time uranium raw material projects are either typically delayed, or not hitting production targets.

“This leads to a greater demand and a smaller-than-forecast supply, which is great for providing upwards pressure on the uranium price.”

Greenvale holds three uranium projects in the Northern Territory, as well as the Oasis uranium project and Alpha torbanite project in Queensland.

Interestingly, GRV is also branching out into geothermal energy at the Millungera Basin in North Queensland, which management reckons holds a thermal energy bounty of 611,000 petajoules (90% probability).

Greenvale isn’t alone, neither in its uranium ambitions nor alternative energy investment.

The conference will also feature DevEX Resources (ASX:DEV), chaired by Tim Goyder, Javelin Minerals (ASX:JAV), Uvre (ASX:UVA) and natural hydrogen company Gold Hydrogen (ASX:GHY).

The Resources Rising Stars Gold Coast conference will be held on September 17-18, 2025.

Attendance is free, but registrations are essential.

You can sign up for the event at the Resources Rising Stars website, or watch the presentations live via the conference stream on the day.