Resources Top 5: A new copper miner (re)joins the bourse, and the lithium juggernaut rolls on

AIC Mines come out of trading halt after finalising acquisition of the ‘Elouise’ copper mine
Marquee Resources adds couple of North American lithium and copper-gold projects to portfolio
European Lithium (lithium), Castle (lithium, gold, base metals) and Pepinnini (lithium, kaolin) up on no news

Here are the biggest small cap resources winners in early trade, Friday November 5.

AIC MINES (ASX:A1M)

The explorer-now-miner has come out of a months-long trading halt after finalising the ‘transformational’ acquisition of the ‘Eloise’ copper mine for ~$25m in cash and shares.

Eloise is a high-grade operating underground mine in North Queensland which has produced 339,000t of copper and 167,000oz of gold since production kicked off in 1996.

Current annual production is ~40,000t of high-quality copper concentrate containing ~11,000t of copper and 6,000oz of gold. The mine made a net profit of $19m from revenues of $133m in FY21.

“The opportunity ahead of us is very exciting,” A1M managing director Aaron Colleran says.

“We can now turn our attention to capturing the potential which we believe exists at Eloise. AIC’s exploration strategy for Eloise will focus on both extensions to the known resource areas and the discovery of new satellite lodes within the Eloise tenements.

“There is clear potential to extend the mine life well beyond five years.”

MARQUEE RESOURCES (ASX:MQR)

The explorer has added couple of North American lithium and copper-gold projects to its portfolio.

The ‘Kibby Basin’ lithium project in Nevada is ~50km from Ioneer’s (ASX:INR) advanced Rhyolite Ridge lithium boron project, and 60km from Marquee’s existing ‘Clayton Valley’ lithium project.

A drill campaign will begin in Q1 of 2022, MQR says.

The historic Lone Star copper-gold mine in Washington State comes with a non-JORC resource of ~200,000oz gold and ~15,000 tonnes copper. A 5,000m drilling campaign begins here on 15 November.

“The Kibby Basin Lithium Project sits in a well-known lithium producing district and directly complements our Clayton Valley Lithium Project,” MQR exec chairman Charles Thomas says.

“Not only is the Kibby Basin Lithium Project already permitted for drilling but more importantly it is fully permitted for water extraction for brine processing and production of lithium compounds.

“The Lone Star Copper-Gold Mine is equally as exciting and being able to secure a significantly advanced former producing high-grade copper asset with great nearby infrastructure in this current buoyant and ever strengthening copper market is very exciting.

“[A] The ~5000m stage 1 drill campaign is slated to begin on November 15, with the aim to not only upgrade the existing historic (2007) resource to JORC 2012 standards but to test for extensions to the deposit which remains open in many directions.”

The $15m market cap stock is up 43% over the past month. It had about $2m in the bank at the end of the September quarter.

EUROPEAN LITHIUM (ASX:EUR)

(Up on no news)

Yesterday, EUR announced a deal to acquire a couple of large lithium projects in Ukraine.

‘Shevchenkivske’ has an exploration target of between 11 million tonnes and 14Mt grading between 1.2% and 1.3% lithium oxide, while ‘Dobra’ has a significantly larger exploration target of between 80Mt and 105Mt grading 1.1% to 1.4% Li2O.

By way of comparison, the company’s flagship ‘Wolfsberg’ project in Austria hosts a current resource of 10.98Mt at 1% Li2O.

The $20m all-share deal is conditional on vendor Millstone being issued the relevant special permits for the extraction and production of lithium, and approval by EUR shareholders.

As part of the acquisition – if it goes ahead — Millstone has also agreed to invest up to $20m in EUR.

The $160m market cap stock is up 57% over the past month, and 214% year-to-date. It had $8.6m in the bank at the end of September.

PEPINNINI MINERALS (ASX:PNN)

(Up on no news)

This lithium-kaolin-copper explorer is currently in the running for ‘2021’s Most Confusing ASX Announcement’ award after striking a pretty nondescript deal with heavyweight lithium producer Ganfeng to run a brine pipeline through PNN’s ‘Santa Ines’ copper gold project in Argentina.

In September, PNN jumped after announcing that blended brines from its ‘Rincon’ and ‘Incahuasi’ salares in Argentina creates a lithium concentration of 8,500 mg/kg — a level 14 times that of Incahuasi brine and seven times that of Rincon brine.

PNN is planning a PFS for both projects.

The explorer is also prepping a drilling program at its kaolin assets in South Australia.

The $30m market cap stock is up 65% over the past month, and 80% year-to-date. It had $2.5m in the bank at the end of September.

CASTLE MINERALS (ASX:CDT)

(Up on no news)

It was a very busy September quarter for CDT, which dialled in on some large SEDEX-style zinc-lead targets in the Earaheedy, picked up lithium ground next to the Greenbushes mine, and hit industry benchmark concentrate grades of fine-flake graphite in test work at the ‘Kambale’ project in Ghana.

This quarter it plans to drill test gold-base metals targets at the ‘Polelle’ project, drill for extensions to the Kambale graphite deposit, and prep for Q1 drill testing at its Earaheedy projects.

CDT is also keen to “apply for and/or acquire interests in additional licences and early-stage projects in areas of Western Australia prospective for battery metals”.

The $18m market cap stock had $2.3m in the bank at the end of September.