Resources Top 5: Alchemy heads into the long weekend on a high after finding lithium anomalies at WA gold project

Alchemy finds multiple lithium anomalies at WA gold project
Orange Minerals plans to kick off drilling at Wisemans Creek this month
American West’s Storm copper project off the Canadian coast picks up steam

Here are the biggest small cap resources winners in early trade, Friday April 22.

ALCHEMY RESOURCES (ASX:ALY)

ALY has found multiple lithium anomalies at its Karonie gold project in WA.

The company says the multi-element signatures of these soil anomalies are consistent with possible hard rock lithium mineralisation associated with lithium-caesium-tantalum (LCT) type pegmatites.

Plus, they’re 8km along strike and within contiguous tenure to Global Lithium Resources’ (ASX:GL1) Manna Lithium deposit (9.9Mt at 1.14% Li201).

“The geochemical review reaffirms the prospectivity of our large tenement package at Karonie in what has historically only ever seen gold and base metals exploration,” CEO James Wilson said.

Detailed mapping and sampling is ongoing.

The $18m market cap player is up 154% year-to-date and had $3m cash at hand at 31 December 2021.

ORANGE MINERALS (ASX:OMX)

(Up on no news)

The recently listed explorer is hunting for copper-gold in two major regions: Lachlan Fold Belt (NSW) and Eastern Goldfields (WA).

The NSW assets are close to major gold mines like Cadia (43.4Moz).

Earlier this month the company said it plans to kick off diamond drilling at its Wisemans Creek gold and base metals project in NSW by the end of April.

The company was previously in a JV with Godolphin Resources for the project but in March signed a binding Heads of Agreement with Godolphin to purchase 100% of the Wisemans Creek and Ophir tenements for $550k (50% cash & 50% equity).

“The Phase 1 drilling programme to soon commence at Wisemans is planned to follow up on historical holes around the Black Bullock Prospect where there are historical workings and elevated gold values in RC/DD drillholes,” MD David Greenwood said.

The $10.6m market cap stock is down 27.5% on its IPO price of 20c per share.

AMERICAN WEST METALS (ASX:AW1)

(Up on no news)

The copper explorer is focused on increasing its copper inventory at the flagship ‘West Desert’ deposit in Utah, about 150km from Rio Tinto’s legendary Bingham Canyon mine.

But its Storm project off the Canadian coast has picked up steam in recent weeks, with ore-sorting test work generating a 53.9% copper direct shipping ore (DSO) product.

The DSO material had no impurities and was produced using a conventional full-scale sorter – meaning that a potential development is likely to have low costs, a small footprint and environmentally friendly processing.

“Storm copper now stands out as one of the very few, and highest-grade DSO copper projects globally,” the company said.

An extensive drill program focused on resource definition is planned.

The $33m market cap stock is up 72% year-to-date. It had about $6.5m in the bank at the end of December.

LARVOTTO RESOURCES (ASX:LRV)

(Up on no news)

The busy explorer is looking for gold, as well as battery metals like lithium, cobalt, nickel, and copper across its three main projects — ‘Mt Isa’ in Queensland, ‘Eyre’ in WA, and ‘Ohakuri’ in NZ.

The company got a speeding ticket on Wednesday, which it put down to a recent application for an exploration licence adjoining the Eyre Project, which adjoins other nearby lithium prospects and the announcement that drilling will commence at Ohakuri.

Plus, an article published by mining journalist Barry Fitzgerald on Livewire on 14 April which “highlighted the company’s portfolio inclusive of copper, gold and lithium, and associated current commodity prices, which may be a factor in the share price and trading performance of the company,” LRV said.

The $19.5m market cap stock is up 250% year-to-date. It had $4.6m in the bank at the end of December.

SANTA FE MINERALS (ASX:SFM)

(Up on no news)

Late last year the explorer signed a deal to earn into the early stage ‘Mt Murray’ project in WA, where it is hunting a nickel-copper-PGE deposit à la Chalice Mining’s (ASX:CHN) Gonneville.

It includes a 4.2km x 1.2km magnetic high zone considered to represent a mafic-ultramafic intrusive package prospective for nickel-copper-PGEs.

In an exploration update this month the company said recently completed Ultrafine Fraction (UFF) soil sampling and a planned 100m line spacing detailed aeromagnetic survey in the June 2022 quarter will “provide robust data sets for additional geophysics and drilling.”

The $8m market cap stock had $4.8m in the bank at the end of December.