Resources Top 4: Power surges on lithium JV; Poseidon continues Lake Johnston adventure

Power Minerals has hopped into bed with Chinese suitors for an Argentinian lithium JV
Poseidon Nickel is looking up, post MinRes backing out from buying Lake Johnston project
Helix and Kalli also making sweet gains on the ASX to close out the week

Here are some of the biggest resources winners in early trade, Friday May 17.

Power Minerals (ASX:PNN)

Power Minerals is focused on minerals that play into the clean energy sector. Namely lithium, but it’s also been diversifying of late into uranium and niobium-rare earths.

But let’s talk lithium. The company’s chief focus is in Argentina, specifically at its Salta brine project in the prolific lithium triangle in the Salta Province.

The company has announced it’s secured a handful of Singaporean and Chinese partners to develop its Rincon lithium project, which is part of the wider Salta operation.

On establishment of the Rincon JV, PNN will hold a 41% interest and Chinese entity Li Energy Technology will hold a 59% interest.

We've entered into a Binding Term Sheet and Convertible Loan Agreement for the strategic funding and development of the Rincon Project within our Salta #Lithium Project, in the lithium triangle of #Argentina.

The agreement provides initial funding of US$5M in two stages: a… pic.twitter.com/UqprZz20wQ

— Power Minerals Limited (ASX:PNN) (@PowerMin_PNN) May 17, 2024

It’s a “transformational agreement”, says Power, and is designed to deliver significant production at Rincon with the aim of making it a big operator in the field of Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE).

Initial strategic funding into the project will represent US$5 million.

“The Rincon Project is Power’s most advanced asset at the Salta Project, and the funding
proposed under this agreement is testament to our commitment to the Project and its
quality Mineral Resource,” said PNN MD Mena Habib.

PNN share price

Poseidon Nickel (ASX:POS)

This explorer is looking up today, even after the proposed sale of its Lake Johnston nickel-lithium project to big gun Mineral Resources (ASX:MIN) fell through.

Exploration, in hiatus for four months while the sales process was taking place, has now kicked off again, with POS unearthing a bunch of greenfields targets to test with the drill bit.

As Reubs noted earlier, “the recovering nickel price is also helping”.

Re the lithium angle, though, numerous pegmatites have been identified at the company’s Lake Johnston project and rock chip samples have been collected from within and near a broad >100ppm Li2O anomaly reported by the company in January.

Soil sampling planning to extend and infill the anomaly is underway, and POS notes that the scale of the project’s open-ended lithium soil anomalies “are already commensurate to
other soil anomalies reported by peer lithium exploration companies working in the greater Lake Johnston region”.

Regarding the nickel search, an October 2023 shallow reconnaissance drilling program at the Maggie Hays West prospect confirmed a “highly promising strong, 1km wide, coherent Ni-Cu-PGE regolith anomaly – a strong indicator of weathered nickel sulphides directly below,” noted the company’s CEO, Brendan Shalders.

“We are very excited on the suite of quality lithium and nickel greenfields targets generated from recently completed low cost exploration programs at both the Lake Johnston and Windarra Projects,” added Shalders.

POS share price

Helix Resources (ASX:HLX)

One of yesterday’s heroes, Helix is still up a goodly amount today. In fact, it’s near the top of the ressie pack gainers again, with a 37% boost. It’s up roughly 57% on the week.

This morning, the Cobar-region copper player announced some funding news, revealing that a ‘rights issue’ undertaken to to raise $2.3 million has now closed “heavily oversubscribed”.

The company notes there was strong support from shareholders and new investors introduced by Mahe Capital, and that an additional $0.5 million has been accepted to accommodate “some of the excess demands”.

The funds will be put towards a drill campaign currently underway to initially test the highest priority geophysics anomaly at the Canbelego copper project near Cobar in central NSW.

Yesterday, the HLX share price surged on the news of its Canbelego drilling.

Up to 3000m at Canbelego has been allocated by the company for the testing of a large (625m long) undrilled Induced Polarisation (IP) chargeable anomaly just west of the Canbelego copper resource.

Essentially, the area is deemed by Helix as highly prospective for what it describes as “Cobar-style parallel copper lodes”.

HLX share price

Killi Resources (ASX:KLI)

This copper-gold junior owns three belt scale (large) copper-gold projects: West Tanami (WA), Ravenswood North and Mt Rawdon West (QLD).

It’s hit the news this week, with share price up accordingly, thanks to the company signing an earn-in joint venture (JV) agreement with a fully owned subsidiary unit of the Johannesburg-headquartered Gold Fields – one of the world’s largest gold mining firms.

This deal could see Gold Fields investing up to A$13m to acquire as much as an 85% interest in Killi’s West Tanami project.

Kill says the agreement validates its work to date and its belief that the West Tanami project has the potential to host a large new scale orogenic gold deposit.

The project covers 1,600km2 of the Tanami Geological Belt in the Kimberly region, and includes a 100km strike of the primary gold mineralising structures.