Resources Top 4: It’s Christmas in July for gold copper explorers

• Aruma rockets on Fiery Creek rock chips, while Terra surges on uranium hit
• Antimony price through the roof, as is Nagambie’s stock price
• FID approved for development of Horizon Minerals’ Boorara gold project

As a cold snap hits across Australia, a bunch of ASX explorers are toasting to successful gains across copper, uranium and gold today.

Here are some of the biggest resources winners in early trade, Monday July 29. Prices correct at time of writing.

Aruma Resources (ASX:AAJ)

Penny stock AAJ has turned up with very high grades of copper from historical surface samples taken by international miners Sumitomo and Anglo American at its recently acquired exploration license of the Fiery Creek project in QLD.

Grades of up to 36% copper were found at multiple prospects across the project area, which majors have long held yet has been underexplored due to depressed copper prices.

That took away exploration interest from other majors such as BHP, Glencore and Rio Tinto that also held the tenure.

AAJ reckons Fiery Creek has high prospectivity for an economic resource within the fertile Mt Isa copper belt.

“The underexplored nature of the project area combined with the positive historic results and favourable geological setting in the prolific Mt Isa minerals district provide an exciting exploration opportunity for Aruma,” AAJ MD Glenn Grayson says.

Shares in the junior shot up 45.5% on early trade to 1.6c per share before reverting to an 18.2% gain.

Terra Uranium (ASX:T92)

There’s nothing like high-grade uranium to get an ASX small cap investor’s heart glowing right now and Terra is the latest explorer to pop up on the winner’s list.

Rather than the more famous Athabasca Basin in Saskatchewan, the Canadian explorer is pottering around Nunavut, where it sampled surface boulders of 7950ppm U or 0.94% U3O8 at the Horned Lake area and 0.18% U3O8 in the Main Zone resource area at Amer Lake.

Amer Lake already contains a foreign, non-JORC compliant resource estimate of 17.827Mt at 380ppm U3O8, containing 15.3Mlb of yellowcake if its N43-101 report can be relied upon. T92 announced a deal to acquire the six claims (total 1190ha), drilled by Uranerz from 1976-1981, back in March, with the resource last compiled in 2012.

That means there are a lot of advancements in modern exploration to unleash on the site. Terra has another two claims staked over 1526ha in Nunavut’s Baker Lake region.

It’s just 20km north of the Amaruq gold project and close to infrastructure, with Terra saying its proposed acquisition is a ‘game-changer’.

“The results from the recent field work confirm the tenor of the mineralisation and that the current defined resource is a small part of a much larger system,” Terra exec chair Andrew Vigar said. “This is a truly game-changing acquisition for Terra, as it gives us real ‘pounds in the ground’ with potential for higher grades and extensions.”

In order for the deal to close the main claims will need to receive their renewal, expected to run for another 5-7 years post approval.

“The company is also pleased to report that Assessment reporting is now complete and submitted to the Nunavut Mining Recorder for processing which is anticipated to extend the mineral claims expiry by at least 5 – 7 years,” T92 said.

T92’s shares were up 17% at 1pm AEST.

Horizon Minerals (ASX:HRZ)

Ashok Parekh-chaired HRZ has received FID approval from the board to start developing the 458,000oz Boorara gold project east of Kalgoorlie in the WA Goldfields.

The gold developer led by the well-connected “King of Kalgoorlie”, owner of its famous Palace Hotel, merged with Greenstone Resources earlier this year and now has the third-largest landholding in Kalgoorlie and a 1.8Moz endowment across the total project portfolio, which includes the 466,570oz Burbanks mine.

It’s eyeing an open pit mining operation where the previous small pit Royal deposit was mined back in 2016 for 20,239t at 1.73g/t gold ands processed through the nearby Greenfields mill.

Studies have pegged Boorara’s cashflow to be $30m at an assumed contract price of $3,600/oz.

“We are focused on making Boorara a safe and efficient mining operation to create value through generating cash and the first step in sustainable gold production for Horizon,” HRZ CEO Grant Haywood says.

Mobilisation to site shall commence immediately, says HRZ, with site establishment and preproduction works also about to get underway.

Mining to begin ramping up from mid-August, with first milling and gold production expected in October this year.

HRZ shares jumped 11% on the news to trade at 4c per share before coming back to 2.8%.

Nagambie Resources (ASX:NAG)

An increase in the prices of antimony by 110% and gold by 24% this year alone has sparked interest in NAG, which is set to produce 47,800oz gold and 17,800t antimony (Sb) across its landholdings in Victoria.

The Nagambie mine orebody has some of the highest antimony mineralisation in Australia, grading at 4.3% Sb – and only one other mine, Mandalay Resources’ Costerfield mine 45km west of the project, is produced in the country.

Antimony is sitting at just below $35,000t, while gold is pushing up towards $3,700/oz.

Shares in the penny stock are up 25% today from 0.8 to 1c per share.

At Stockhead we tell it like it is. This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.