Resources Top 5: Battery makers invest directly in red hot nickel-cobalt stock

Global battery maker LGES and steel producer POSCO will invest a combined $15m in Queensland Pacific
Aeris hits thick, shallow and high grade copper in NSW
Successful ore sorting trials boost gold grades at Dateline’s ‘Gold Links’ mine

Here are the biggest small cap resources winners in early trade, Tuesday June 8.

QUEENSLAND PACIFIC (ASX:QPM)

Global battery maker LGES and steel producer POSCO will invest a combined $15m in this advanced nickel-cobalt project developer.

Shares will be issued at a price of ~13.5c — a 16.8% premium to the one-month VWAP.

QPM has also signed binding offtake agreements for the sale of 10,000t nickel and 1,000t cobalt from the ‘TECH’ project with the two companies.

“The ability for QPM to attract and establish business relationships with companies of the calibre of LG Energy Solution and POSCO is validation for our company and what we are trying to achieve with the TECH project,” QPM boss Stephen Grocott says.

LGES’s Dongsoo Kim said this was the most meaningful investment in its supply chain since the company spun out from LG Chem.

POSCO’s Seokmo Chung also said the company looks forward to assessing “other business opportunities that may arise between QPM and POSCO”.

~$200m market cap QPM has gained 710% over the past 12 months.

DATELINE RESOURCES (ASX:DTR)

Processing trials at Dateline’s Gold Links mine in Colorado — which boosted gold grades from ~15g/t to 21.7g/t — could reduce processing costs and increase potential profits, managing director Stephen Baghdadi says.

“The ore sorting results are in line with our expectations and have confirmed that the Gold Links ore is perfectly suited for this technology,” he says.

“The company intends to conduct an additional test to determine if the results can be further improved by using an ore sorter that is capable of both XRT and Laser in a single run.”

The $40m market cap explorer is up 120% year to date.

IRON ROAD (ASX:IRD)

(Up on no news)

Iron Road wants to develop a mammoth green hydrogen project for iron ore pellet production in South Australia’s proposed Cape Hardy port.

Key focusses for 2021 include reaching financial close for the Cape Hardy Stage I port development, attracting investment in the advanced $US1.74 billion Central Eyre Iron Project (CEIP), and “monetising early stage green hydrogen partnerships”.

The ~$270m market cap stock is up 475% over the past 12 months.

HELIX RESOURCES (ASX:HLX)

(Up on no news)

The ~$59m market cap copper explorer rerated in March after hitting 29.5 metres of copper sulphides at the advanced Canbelego project in NSW, a joint venture with miner Aeris Resources.

Assays aren’t due until June, but just check out this chunk of copper:

asx resources iron ore copper — Copper bearing sulphide veins intersected at Helix’s Canbelego project.

AERIS RESOURCES (ASX:AIS)

The share price of this copper-gold miner hit near three-year highs today on “remarkable” thick, shallow and high grade copper in drilling, including:

47m @ 3.90% copper, 0.96g/t gold, 5.6g/t silver (from 11m), and
10m @ 5.48% copper, 0.83g/t gold, 3.7g/t silver (from 40m), including 5m @ 10.77% copper, 1.56g/t gold, 6.8g/t silver

The results come from the ‘Constellation’ deposit, part of the ‘Tritton’ copper operations in NSW.

The first round of assay results from the RC drilling have exceeded expectations, Aeris exec chairman Andre Labuschagne says.

“Intersecting high grade copper mineralisation within 10m from surface is remarkable,” he says.

“The footprint of this near-surface copper mineralisation is also larger than we expected and remains open along strike to the south.”

The $400m market cap stock is up 330% over the past 12 months.