• First drilling results from Riedel’s Kingman project include highlight 5.5m at 12.4g/t gold, 105g/t silver and 3.9% lead from 16.8m
  • Argent Minerals’ small tussle with WA Supreme Court over a supremely boring “administrative oversight” resolved
  • Red Mountain has increased the size of its newly acquired Mustang lithium project in Nevada

Here are the biggest small cap resources winners in early trade, Wednesday, January 18.

 

RIEDEL RESOURCES (ASX:RIE)

The second small gold explorer to (briefly) spike +100% on volume in as many days, following Adelong Gold’s (ASX:ADG) monster effort yesterday.

Much like ADG, RIE is a sub $10m capped stock hitting shallow, high-grade stuff at a time when gold sentiment is on the up.

RIE says first drilling results from its Kingman project in the US include a highlight 5.5m at 12.4g/t gold, 105g/t silver and 3.9% lead from just 16.8m.

Also, this one from another hole — 0.37m @ 122.6g/t gold, 172g/t silver and 3.7% lead from 67.4m.

The hits come from the so-called Tintic zone, which is currently up to 600m long “and appears to be flat lying, shallow and potentially very high grade”, RIE says.

This ‘blanket’ of high-grade gold, silver and lead mineralisation lies just below the surface, chairman Michael Bohm says.

“I would be excited if these grades were achieved for an underground mining target, but the mineralisation at Tintic starts within 10m to 15m of surface,” he says.

“To date the mineralisation appears up to 150m in width and, at this time, the Tintic zone appears to be approximately 600m in length.

“In addition, holes 075D and 021B sit on the south-west boundary of our mineralised envelope at Tintic and having two holes both hitting very high grade speaks to the potential for extensions to the high grade mineralisation.”

Remaining assay results are anticipated in late January and February, says the explorer, which will use them to plan resource drilling for Tintic potentially commencing 2Q CY2023.

“Our goal remains to progress Tintic toward a development decision point as soon as possible,” Bohm says.

“The nature of the mineralisation, both in grade and depth, lends itself toward an RC drill program potentially commencing next quarter.

“We see this being the catalyst for a Mineral Resource estimate before year-end, with metallurgical testwork and base-line environmental work also being important components of our work in Arizona in 2023.”

RIE has $1.4m in the bank at the end of September.

 

ARGENT MINERALS (ASX:ARD)

ARD’s small tussle with the Supreme Court over a supremely boring “administrative oversight” has been resolved, and the stock is now trading again.

The issue related to the explorer not lodging a compliant cleansing notice or prospectus pursuant to sections 708A(6) and 708A(11) of the Corporations Act for various share issues since 2016.

ARD is one of the few stocks on the ASX with decent silver exposure via its advanced 52Moz silver equivalent Kempfield gold-silver-base metal project in NSW.

A 3000m resource and geophysics drill program will commence at Kempfield in the current quarter.

Late last year it also picked up a new copper and rare earths project in WA called Copperhead, which is down the road from Hastings Technology Metals’ Yangibana REE project development.

ARD is planning a maiden drilling campaign at Copperhead in Q2.

The $15m capped stock had $1.4m in the bank in October last year.

 

RED MOUNTAIN MINING (ASX:RMX)

RMX has increased the size of its newly acquired Mustang lithium project in Nevada which is prospective for clay hosted deposits.

The explorer says the 1,070ha project area sits in the same rocks and “lithium enrichment settings” as American Lithium’s 10.7Mt TLC project and Cypress Development Corp’s 7.2Mt Clayton Valley project.

Early-stage exploration has now kicked off, ahead of a planned 10-hole drilling program.

The company also has exploration ground in the NT, adjacent to Core Lithium’s (ASX:CXO) Finniss lithium project and Lithium Plus Minerals’ (ASX:LPM) Bynoe lithium project.

The $5m market cap minnow had ~$2.8m in the bank following a December raise.

 

SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE MINING (ASX:SUH)

Sampling has dialled in on a new copper porphyry anomaly at SUH’s 680,000t copper equivalent (CuEq) Llahuin project in Chile.

Poprhyry mines are multigenerational monsters responsible for ~60% of the world’s copper, most of its molybdenum, and significant amounts of gold and silver.

Their easy-mining large volumes make up for the low grades, typically between 0.3 per cent to 1 per cent copper equivalent.

SUH says the Southern Porphyry anomaly sits within a large circular magnetic feature – “a classic porphyry style magnetic target”.

“The company geologists are currently completing geological/structural mapping in the area of the copper in soil anomaly to better understand the area,” it says.

“Further exploration work continues to target new opportunities for copper/gold resource expansion.”

The $8m market cap stock had ~$2m in the bank following a mid-December cap raise.

 

GODOLPHIN RESOURCES (ASX:GRL)

Maiden drilling has pulled up clay-hosted rare earth element (REE) and rare metal mineralisation at GRL’s Narraburra project ahead of a resource update in the current quarter.

19 of the 22 drill holes hit REEs, with eight of those outside the bounds of previously identified REE mineralisation, “confirming an open system and the potential for a considerably larger REE/RM system at the project”, it says.

Highlights include 3m @ 3,481ppm Total Rare Earth Oxides (“TREO”) from 31m.

“The latest results confirm TREOs are present in the shallower clay and saprock zones, which can lead to near‐term, low‐cost mining opportunities and expedited extraction to generate potential project funding and offtake interest,” GRL managing director Jeneta Owens says.

“The company is now commencing metallurgical test work with mineralogical studies, while exploring additional exploration opportunities to gain further understanding of the larger system at Narraburra.

“Godolphin will utilise the results from all 31 holes drilled to date at the project, as the basis for an updated Mineral Resource Estimate to JORC (2012) standard.

“Work towards this calculation is underway and we expect to provide further updates on the upgraded MRE during the current quarter.”

The $12m capped stock had $3.2m in the bank at the end of September.