- Aussie explorers Superior and Great Boulder uncover thick gold at their respective projects, shares fly
- Gold and lithium stock Hawkstone continues strong share price run
- Obscure rare earth explorers Viagold and Enova up on no news
Here’s your top ASX small cap resources winners in morning trade Monday, January 18.
Thick, shallow and high grade gold hits — like 5m at 38g/t from 49m — sent this $25m market cap minnow surging in early trade.
Two intersections, including the one mentioned above, identified a very high grade ore shoot with potential to “materially increase total ounces” at Superior’s 112,000oz Steam Engine gold deposit in Queensland.
“This latest development together with the recent realisation of the size magnitude of the new Dinner Creek Lode, demonstrate that we are only just beginning to uncover the project’s potential,” managing director Peter Hwang says.
GREAT BOULDER RESOURCES (ASX:GBR)
Drilling has confirmed a new discovery at the explorer’s ‘Blue Poles’ prospect near Kalgoorlie.
The program identified primary gold for 700m, including broad zones of up to 52m @ 1.02g/t from 28m to the end of hole – which means they were still ‘in gold’ when drilling stopped.
There are two key takeaways here, Great Boulder managing director Andrew Paterson says.
“Firstly, we’ve identified primary gold over a 700m length in our first few RC holes, and it remains open at depth and to the south,” he says.
“That means the deposit is in-situ and not just a shallow supergene deposit limited to the weathered, near-surface material.
“Secondly, these intersections up to 52m wide demonstrate the potential for a large mineralised system.”
The next round of drilling will test the true thickness of these zones, he says.
“These initial holes are on lines 100m apart, so the discovery remains at a very early stage. We are looking forward to recommencing drilling as soon as possible.”
(Up on no news)
Hawkstone is a gold-focussed explorer right now, but its recent spike can be attributed to strong battery metals sentiment.
Its Big Sandy lithium project in the US hosts a big 320,800 tonne lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) resource.
That’s about $1 billion of in-ground value from just 4 per cent of the total landholding which has been explored so far. Huge.
The stock is now up 60 per cent over the past two trading days.
(Up on no news)
This Northern Territory focused rare earths play hasn’t put out an announcement since late October.
It is ostensibly undergoing met test work on Charley Creek project ore to develop a process flowsheet (designing the processing plant) “and estimate key project parameters and costs”, it said.
VIAGOLD RARE EARTH RESOURCES (ASX:VIA)
(Up on no news)
Another obscure rare earth play, this $2m market cap sleeper has announced sweet fa since releasing a half yearly report in November last year.
“The Group’s rare earth subsidiary is mainly in the processing and refinery of rare earth elements for production use,” it said at the time.
“It is limited by rare earth mining resources but on the other hand it’s benefitted from the increase of heavy rare earth metal price.”
During the last half the company made a profit of $98,000, down from $900,000 in the same period in 2019.