Resources Top 5: After 140 years minerals still being extracted at Broken Hill

• Coolabah Metals is consolidating two of the three companies with operating mines in Broken Hill
• Hot Chili is leveraged to strong copper fundamentals with its projects in Chile
• The vertically integrated battery anode material strategy of Renascor is showing its mettle

Your standout small cap resources stocks for Friday, March 28, 2025.

Coolabah Metals (ASX:CBH)

It is incredible to think that more than 140 years since the first discovery at Broken Hill, valuable metals are still being extracted and mining continues to be a mainstay of the far west New South Wales town.

A 300Mt mineral system, the 7.5km-long, 1.6km-deep Line of Lode still supports mining and was the birthplace of none other than Broken Hill Proprietary Company Limited, now known as BHP.

The Line of Lode mines have supported a population that peaked at 35,000 and still stands at about 18,000 today.

Yes, there have been the ebbs and flows common in the industry but mining of silver, lead and zinc has always been carried out and with exploration ongoing in the region, including for other metals like cobalt, copper, tin, gold and lithium, the industry is set to continue for many more years.

And just across the border in South Australia are mining and exploration plays in uranium, gold, copper-gold and magnetite. 

Coolabah Metals is set to become the latest chapter in a book getting increasingly larger as it consolidates the Rasp mine in the town itself with the shuttered Pinnacles mine 15km to the southwest.

Appropriately this will see the company change name to Broken Hill Mines as part of a reverse takeover.

CBH’s latest progress involves Pinnacles, where it has taken a 70% interest in a joint venture that could see high-grade silver-lead-zinc ore from the mine fed into the operating but under-utilised Rasp processing infrastructure.

This interest was secured after paying a second option fee of $600,000, making it the exclusive operator of Pinnacles, at which operations were suspended in 2020.

Profits will be shared 70:30 with the Pinnacles vendors via an agreed net smelter return calculation with appropriate deductions.

Pinnacles remains relatively undeveloped but is considered one of the region’s highest-grade and shallowest deposits.

It has a resource of 6Mt grading 10.9% zinc equivalent with an exploration target range of between six million and 15Mt offering potential for further growth. 

This is dominated by silver, a key feature for the JV with the previous metal trading at or near record levels.

Operations are expected to resume from the main Edwards pit.

The deal is significant for CBH and for the mining town as it consolidates two of the three companies with operating mines at Broken Hill and is expected to bring a wealth of development opportunities.

Hot Chili (ASX:HCH)

Tightening copper supply in China and potential tariffs on the red metal from Donald Trump’s US government have intensified concerns about a supply squeeze and lifted prices.

Since the beginning of 2025 the copper price has climbed ~28% from just above US$4 a pound to around $5.10.

In the past week the copper price rally has accelerated to levels that should see miners radically uplift their cash flows. 

Many analysts believe the market will see much higher copper prices by the end of this decade as supply deficits emerge and subsequently intensify, leading to remarkable returns for investors in well-managed copper companies. 

There are relatively few new copper projects coming on line but one that is shaping up well in the South American coastal copper hotspot is Hot Chili’s Costa Fuego from which a robust PFS was delivered on Thursday.

So encouraging was the PFS that it places the copper-gold project within an elite group of copper developments globally.

The study shows post-tax NPV of US$1.2bn, post-tax IRR of 19.5% and all-in-sustaining costs of US$1.85/lb from production of 1.5Mt of copper and 780,000 ounces of gold over a 20-year mine life. 

These economics are highly leveraged to the copper price. At Thursday’s spot price of US$5.35/lb, the NPV increases to US$2.5bn and the IRR to 30%. 

Over the mine life, the PFS estimates total revenue of around US$17.3bn and total free cash flow of around US$8.6bn.

Hot Chili also announced probable ore reserves of 502Mt at 0.37% copper, 0.1g/t gold, 0.49g/t silver and 97ppm molybdenum.

“With both copper and gold prices at record highs, our PFS has demonstrated two of the most critical factors in assessing the likelihood of meaningful, near-term copper supply – top quartile production capacity and lowest quartile capital intensity,” managing director Christian Easterday said.

And there’s room to grow with the La Verde copper-gold porphyry discovery 30km south of the planned Costa Fuego central processing hub providing a platform for front-end open pit mine life growth.

Drilling is ongoing at La Verde and Easterday said exploration success here represented a highly prospective further growth opportunity. 

Renascor Resources (ASX:RNU)

Graphite is another of the critical minerals in the spotlight due to its important use in new-age batteries.

Warming up in the spotlight is Renascor Resources with its vertically integrated battery anode material project in South Australia.

The project involves several components – the Siviour deposit, the world’s largest proven graphite reserve outside of Africa, a graphite mine and processing operation as well as a battery anode material production facility. 

With this strategy it plans to break China’s iron grip on supply of the battery metal by going one step further, producing upgraded material for EV batteries on our shores.

The battery anode material project is projected to have a 40-year life with a globally competitive operating cost of US$1782/t over its first decade.

An initial upstream investment for the Siviour mine and concentrator has been forecast to cost $214.5m. 

Renascor has now received early contractor involvement submissions from leading EPC firms GR Engineering Services and Primero Group, who are vying to be the preferred contractor for the landmark project. 

Their work has already paid dividends, delivering design improvements which will improve the engineering of the mineral processing plant, reduce operating costs, improve the targeted graphite grade and recovery. 

The production of graphite larger than 150 microns will lift from 17% to 27% of total production. Larger flake sizes are known to draw premiums from customers.

“The competitiveness of Renascor’s BAM project is based in large part on the quality of the Siviour Graphite Deposit and its potential to offer amongst the lowest operating cost and most capital efficiency of any ex-China graphite project,”  Renascor MD David Christensen said.

RNU shares have been as much as 6.7% higher in ASX trading to 4.8c.

New Murchison Gold (ASX:NMG)

With gold holding above USA$3000/oz a number of ASX gold players have been benefitting, including New Murchison Gold which has risen from 0.9c early this month to 1.7c and attracting strong volume with the trading of almost 55m shares on Friday being an example.

The company holds a substantial package of tenements in the prolific Murchison goldfield near Meekatharra, Western Australia.

Primary focus is on the Garden Gully Gold Project which comprises a 677km2 tenure package covering the Abbotts Greenstone Belt and other key regional structures. 

The project has multiple gold deposits along the belt with the most advanced being the Crown Prince deposit, which is delivering solid exploration results.

Last week the company received firm commitments from existing and new strategic, institutional and sophisticated investors for a placement of $16.5m at 1.3c per share.

The placement was strongly supported by major shareholder Westgold Resources with a subscription of $2.8 million, resulting in a shareholding of 16.22% post-placement. 

Argent Minerals (ASX:ARD)

Another to benefit from precious metals strength, in this case silver, is Argent Minerals which has the Kempfield project in the central part of the prolific Lachlan Fold Belt in NSW.

Kempfield hosts a JORC resource of 63.7Mt at 69.75g/t silver equivalent for 142.8m silver equivalent ounces, including 65.8Moz silver, 125,192oz gold, 207,402t lead and 420,373t zinc.

Recent drilling intersected shallow, broad zones of silver-gold-copper-lead-zinc mineralisation with up to 110m thick VMS-style mineralisation.

The results have potential to increase the company’s resource in a zone that remains open along strike and at depth.

Since mid-January ARG securities have risen from 1.8c to 3c on Friday with more than 35 million shares changing hands.

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent financial advice before making any financial decisions. While Coolabah Metals, Hot Chili, Renascor Resources and Argent Minerals are Stockhead advertisers, they did not sponsor this article.