Resources Top 5: Are promising junior ASX gold stocks returning to favour?

WIA now drilling ahead of maiden gold resource at flagship Kokoseb project in Q2
Former market darling Auteco looks to add ounces to high grade 2.2Moz resource at Pickle Crow
Moho waiting on rare earths, gold and nickel drilling results

Here are the biggest small cap resources winners in early trade, Monday March 13.

WIA GOLD (ASX:WIA)

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The WIA share price peaked late June last year after the first three holes into ‘Kokoseb’ in Namibia returned shallow, high-grade gold hits.

Kokoseb “has the potential to become a major gold project”, the company formerly known as Tanga Resources said at the time. Since then, drilling has defined four high-grade mineralised zones and delineated a continuous 4.4 km gold mineralised strike.

Infill drilling is underway to support a maiden mineral resource estimate that is expected to be released in Q2 2023.

WIA also has boots on the ground across gold projects in Côte d’Ivoire, including Mankono – where a “strong” 1.7km long, 250m wide anomaly was recently defined.

The $27m capped stock is down 8% year-to-date. It had $5.4m in the bank at the end of December.

AUTECO MINERALS (ASX:AUT)

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Advanced explorers and near-term producers will be in demand if gold returns to favour in 2023.

In 2020, vanadium-titanium explorer AUT caught a rocket after buying Pickle Crow, one of Canada’s highest-grade historical gold mines which produced 1.5 million ounces of gold at a grade of 16g/t until 1966.

Since then, the company – spearheaded by the same team that made Bellevue Gold (ASX:BGL) such a success — has drilled out a 2.3Moz resource grading 7.8g/t.

AUT claims this makes the asset has one of the highest-grade +2Moz resources globally in a, tier 1 mining jurisdiction.

The company is now looking to add ounces through resource expansion and regional exploration across its under-explored 500sqkm landholding.

Near term it also plans to complete a scoping study – the first proper look at the economics of building a project.

AUT has also retained a vanadium leg. It still holds a 90% interest in the Limestone Well vanadium-titanium project, a stone’s throw from Neometals’ advanced Barrambie deposit in WA.

The $105m capped stock is down 8% year-to-date. It recently raised $9m via placement (at a decent 12% discount to the last traded price) to fast-track regional exploration.

AUSTRALIAN POTASH (ASX:APC)

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The late 2021 collapse of Salt Lake Potash and thornier-than-expected ramp up at Kalium Lake’s (ASX:KLL) Beyondie mine has soured investor sentiment towards the rest of the sulphate of potash (SOP) pack.

This is despite the fundamentals remaining sound.

“Longer–term, we see potash as a future-facing commodity with attractive fundamentals,” says major producer BHP in its latest commodity outlook.

“Demand for potash stands to benefit from the intersection of global mega-trends: rising population, changing diets and the need for the sustainable intensification of agriculture.”

APC is currently looking for partners to build its ‘Lake Wells’ SOP project 500km east of Kalgoorlie in WA.

“The Board of APC continue to canvass development funding opportunities to bring Lake Wells … into development,” APC reported late February.

“A dataroom has been made available to various parties who have expressed interest in working with APC in this respect and the company continues to pursue these opportunities.”

APC says an “optimised” development at Lake Wells will produce 205,000tpa of SOP over 30 years, generating an NPV8 of A$1.014bn, pre-tax IRR of 22% and annual average pre-tax free cash flow of $155m. It would cost ~$295m to build.

Meanwhile, the company is offloading a non-core gold project for ~$200,000 (plus 1.5% NSR) to Maverick Minerals, which intends to conduct an IPO and list on the ASX.

$20m capped APC is down 67% over the past year. It had $1.34m in the bank at the end of December.

MOHO RESOURCES (ASX:MOH)

The diversified, early-stage explorer has completed drilling for rare earths and gold at the Burracoppin project, 250 NE of Perth in WA.

The 39-hole, 1355m campaign targeted potential clay-hosted REEs and untested gold anomalies.

Results are excepted sometime in Q2, MOH says.

Meanwhile, drilling assays are pending from the previously undrilled Dukes, T3 and T4 nickel targets, part of the Silver Swan North project.

The $3m capped stock had ~$1.3m in the bank following the receipt of an R&D tax refund early March.

CORELLA RESOURCES (ASX:CR9)

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Late February the explorer announced it would convert newly acquired grain bin infrastructure ahead of mining at the nearby 24.7Mt Tampu kaolin project, northeast of Perth.

The 6.12-hectare facility – consisting of ~15,000t storage shed, road loading facility, weighbridge, and site office with accommodation – will be “pivotal” for proposed mining operations, the company says.

It cost the company $255,000 in cash.

Meanwhile, drilling results at the Whitecap and Whitehills discoveries are expected imminently.

The company is also upgrading the existing resource into mineable reserves which, along with additional metallurgical results, will be used to underpin a Pre-Feasibility Study for the project.

The high purity of the Tampu deposit highlights the potential of the resource to qualify as feedstock for the lucrative high purity alumina (HPA) market, CR9 says.

The HPA market includes various technology applications including lithium-ion batteries, LED lights and semiconductors which can attract prices between ~$40,000–$70,000 per tonne.

The $14m capped stock has rebounded strongly to be up 100% year-to-date. It had $2.3m in the bank at the end of December.