Resources Top 5: Almonty flexes on strength of tungsten with ADI partnership

Almonty Industries secures tungsten partnership with American Defence International
Terra Uranium diversifies portfolio with tin, silver and gold prospects
Lotus Resources is signing a binding contract with a large American power utility

Your standout small cap resources stocks for Wednesday, March 19, 2025.

Almonty Industries (ASX:AII)

Almonty Industries continued its strong recent run on securing a strategic partnership agreement for its tungsten concentrate with American Defence International, Inc (ADI), a prominent government relations and business development firm based in Washington DC.

This deal supports the company’s position as a leading allied supplier of tungsten to the American defence and technology industries.

Investors clapped their hands on the news, driving AII shares 38% higher in ASX trading to $2.36, approaching the record high of $2.40 set last month.

Tungsten is the second hardest element after diamond and on the Mohs scale of hardness rates at around 9 with diamonds at 10.

It has the highest melting point of all metals, melting at 3422 degrees C, has the highest building point at 5930 degrees C and the highest tensile strength. Tungsten retains its hardness at high temperatures.

The partnership with ADI represents a significant step in strengthening Almonty’s strategic positioning within the critical metals sector to support the US government as well as the American defence and technology industries.

Alongside AII redomiciling to the US, the collaboration with ADI will enhance engagement in the US market by reinforcing the company’s alignment and support of government policies and industry priorities.

Founded in 1995 and supported by a team of former senior government officials, military officers and congressional aides, ADI has a strong track record of assisting companies in securing key government relationships, advancing strategic initiatives and facilitating global expansion.

“We are thrilled to announce our partnership with American Defense International, which will help position Almonty as a leading allied supplier of tungsten and molybdenum for American interests,” Almonty’s president and CEO Lewis Black said.

“As we move to finalise our redomiciling to the United States, ADI’s expertise and relationships, forged through working with industry-leaders such as SpaceX, will position us to strengthen relationships with key stakeholders in a rapidly evolving global landscape.

“We look forward to working closely with their team in the months and years to come as we strive to create sustainable, long-term value for my fellow shareholders.”

Terra Uranium (ASX:T92)

As well as maintaining its focus on uranium, Terra Uranium will add tin, silver and gold arrows to its quiver through the acquisition of LCT Metals, which holds two exploration plays in the New England Tin Province of northern NSW.

The company has entered into a Binding Term Sheet to acquire LCT Metals, whose tenements hold the Ottery tin mine, Castle Rag silver project and Mole River silver and tin project.

Ottery was the largest hard rock tin producer in the New England region, producing around 2700t of SnO at 2% Sn.
Mineralisation occurs in a series of five lodes hosted by an intrusive porphyry unit, surrounded by wide zones which also contain significant gold and silver.

The Ottery mineralised zone is at least 500m long, 30m wide and extends vertically for at least 120m.

It is highly mineralised with widespread intervals of >5% sulphides and rock-chip samples identified over a 13km strike Include 64% Sn and 1670 g/t Ag from surface.

Mole River has a strike length of 13km with 6km of known mineralisation, covering a large area with tin and silver zones.
The tin zone includes the historic Silent Grove mine with production at 3% Sn.

There are also 24 outcrops with samples >30 g/t Ag as well as lead and zinc over 13km of strike.

Castle Rag silver project encompasses a strike of more than 7km in length, with historic high-grade surface samples including 1670 g/t Ag, 445 g/t Ag and 1.12% copper and 210 g/t Ag, 1.19% Cu, 1.19% Pb and 0.41% Zn.

The tin potential particularly excites T92 with tin trading at record highs in recent weeks due to supply constraints brought about by geopolitical mishaps.

“The T92 exploration strategy has been expanded from just uranium to tin, silver and gold in Australia,” Terra Uranium executive chairman Andrew Vigar said.

“Whilst we will retain our valuable Canadian uranium assets we have taken the option to make an acquisition in the prolific New England tin, silver, antimony and gold province.

T92 has also received firm commitments from a number of sophisticated investors to raise $500,000 before costs in a placement at 4c per share.

The company remains well-positioned to take advantage of an anticipated recovery in the uranium price, reflecting the global recognition of nuclear energy’s critical role in a low-carbon future, with the retention of all projects in the Athabasca Basin, Canada.

“This is an exciting time for T92; we thank new and existing shareholders for their continued support and look forward to keeping all shareholders informed of these new targets,” Vigar said.

In response to the diversification, investors have pushed T92 shares up by 18.5% to a daily high of 4.5c.

Lotus Resources (ASX:LOT)

Uranium focused Lotus Resources has this week received a boost to its plans to restart the Kaylekera uranium project in Malawi on signing a binding contract with a large American power utility.

The agreement is for the sale and purchase of 600,000lbs of uranium from Kaylekera for 2026 to 2029 with contract pricing being a fixed USD amount based on the published long-term prices of leading nuclear market research and analysis companies, less a non-material discount.

A fixed-price escalation percentage per annum will apply from the time of first delivery for subsequent delivery years, with the amount in line with Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) long-term inflation target.

The contract pricing achieved was the result of competitive discussions.

Lotus now has entered into sale arrangements for up to 3.2M lbs of uranium to be produced at Kayelekera from 2026
The company’s offtake strategy is focused on securing long-term linked prices with sales to be predominantly covered by contracts. The aim is to minimise uncontracted spot exposure.

Lotus continues to advance discussions relating to a series of additional contracts with other nuclear power utilities as part of its offtake strategy.

The company is on track for first uranium from Kayelekera in Q3 2025, with its restart program fully funded.

“Formalising this offtake arrangement with a key customer is an important milestone for Lotus as we continue to progress production restart plans at Kayelekera towards our Q3 2025 goal,” Lotus managing director Greg Bittar said.

“Notwithstanding recent weakness in spot prices, our engagement with customers and potential customers, comprising mostly North American utilities, has demonstrated to us the continuing strength in the term contracting market, as uranium customers continue to secure long-term contracts and actively seek to support new supply.”

Shares hit 18.5c, an 8.83% increase on the previous close with more than 24 million changing hands.

Lotus also this month updated its scoping study for the Letlhakane project in Botswana, highlighting its potential to become a 5.5Mlbpa uranium producer.

The study confirmed Letlhakane’s potential to become a significant uranium operation and complements the company’s production at the Kayelekera project.

MTM Critical Metals (ASX:MTM)

(Up on no news)

MTM Critical Metals has given up some of its gains from late in 2024 but is still sitting on a more than 80% 12 month lift, a vote of confidence in the former explorer’s shift into mineral processing.

Its technology, developed by Rice University in Texas where it is aiming to develop a demonstration plant this year, has been described as potentially “revolutionary”.

With major funds Terra Capital and Pengana Capital in its corner, MTM has taken Flash Joule Heating, a technology that superheats recycled materials for brief moments to separate and extract metals, into the scrap market.

Its first significant MoU shone a spotlight on the junior after it linked up with America’s Indium Corporation to study the processing of gallium, germanium and indium from high-grade scrap.

The kicker? Those metals used in the production of critical semiconductor chips were recently subject to export bans from China, putting a rocket under the prices of the lightly traded but now strategically essential AI components.

But the company’s supporters, including rare earths market commentator and Terra Capital analyst Dylan Kelly, think the processing breakthrough has broader implications.

It could be a applied to a range of critical minerals including rare earths and even, as per its latest MoU, Red Mud.

That’s the unseemly by-product of aluminium refining stashed to the tune of over 4Bt in tailings dams worldwide.

MTM is working with US$20bn Indian metals conglomerate Vedanta to see if FJH can be used to create an alternative to clinker, energy-intensive nodules of limestone and clay the form the core of cement kilns.

Nexus Minerals (ASX:NXM)

(Up on no news)

Gold explorer Nexus Minerals is attracting plenty of attention on the back of high-grade hits, an enlarged and accelerated drilling program and, of course, the yellow metal exceeding the US$3000/oz mark.

These fundamentals have led to Nexus attracting interest from several brokers while Lowell Resources Fund chief investment officer John Forwood likes the look of the explorer.

Last month he told us that while Nexus doesn’t have its own infrastructure, its Crusader-Templar project sits just 40km from Northern Star Resources’ (ASX:NST) Carosue Dam gold project and processing plant.

Forwood said the explorer briefly surged in late 2021 before disappointing exploration results brought it back to Earth. But $30m capped Nexus is again drawing investor interest, this time from a lower base.

“A few years ago there was talk of that being a million ounces, then they came out with the initial resource of ~300,000oz,” he said.

“But all of that, if they were able to put it through Carosue Dam, would be mineable and make a lot of money for Nexus.
“There’s a subset of that, 80,000oz, which can travel a lot further.”

But the green sky is in a large tract of greenstone south of Northern Star’s porphyry mining centre that has never been drilled.

“Nexus are drilling that at the moment and getting some great aircore results,” Forwood said.

“They’ve got numerous targets so that’s really very exciting, I think that’s probably one of the top picks that we’ve got in terms of both exploration but also near term toll treatment development.”

Nexus is in a trading halt as it prepares a response to a price query from the ASX.

The halt followed the company reaching 10c, a high of almost two years and a 67 increase on the previous close.

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent financial advice before making any financial decisions. While MTM Critical Metals is a Stockhead advertiser, it did not sponsor this article.