Pic: Denise Balyoz Photography, Moment/ Via Getty Images
Mining
Here are the biggest small cap resources winners in early trade, Thursday October 13.
CNB rerated heavily in December last year after hitting a 41m long intercept at 4.1% copper — which included a 9m chunk grading 10.3% — at Nil Desperandum, part of the Greater Duchess project in Queensland.
That’s thick and high grade. The company has since added significant discoveries at the nearby Lady Fanny and Mount Hope prospects.
Today, it announced a 60m intercept at 3.1% copper from ~100m depth at Mount Hope – “the widest and highest-grade drill result yet recorded throughout the Greater Duchess Project”, says managing director Rob Watkins.
It even surpasses the discovery hole a Nil Desperandum.
“These exceptional drill results from Mount Hope are pointing towards a very material and growing discovery, regionally significant within the Mount Isa Inlier,” he says.
“With numerous IP anomalies, structural targets and obvious direct extension drill targets to the results announced today, we look forward with great anticipation to the unfolding discovery at Mount Hope.”
While the open pit at Mount Hope was mined in the late 1960s to early 1970s to a maximum depth of ~35m, there is remarkably no publicly available records of any previous historical drilling.
So far, CNB has defined a steeply dipping quartz copper sulphide lode which is open at depth.
The $132m market cap stock is up 9% over the past month.
(Up on no news)
The explorer has a handful of copper projects in the Bryah Basin of WA, the main one a JV with mid-tier copper miner Sandfire Resources (ASX:SFR) called Morck Well.
In February 2018, Auris entered a Farm-in Agreement with SFR in relation to the Morck Well, 22km from SFR’s DeGrussa copper mine. SFR will spend a bunch of cash to earn up to 70% in the project.
In the June quarter, a massive ~1.1km drill hole was completed at the Citra prospect, which hit some promising stuff.
Assays for this hole are pending.
“A key highlight for the quarter was the successful diamond drilling at the Citra Prospect within our Morck Well JV with Sandfire, with initial observations highlighting previously uncharted DeGrussa formation sediments,” AUR managing director Mike Hendricks said 26 July.
“These sediments are along strike of previous copper hits including one hole with 11m at 3.5% copper (Refer ASX Announcement 6 June 2018), so we are certainly looking forward to the follow-up drilling programme and DHEM this quarter to investigate this further.
“Morck Well is continuing to shape as an exciting copper-gold opportunity for the JV with follow-up work planned and diamond drilling assays expected to be received this quarter.”
AUR is also keeping an eye out for acquisitions.
“Auris also continues to assess other value accretive opportunities that complement our current portfolio and strategic focus, and we look forward to reporting further updates from the business this quarter,” Henricks says.
The $9m market cap stock is up 10% over the past month.
Clay hosted rare earths have been discovered from surface at Morgans Creek, part of the Mt Craig project in South Australia.
Drilling pulled up widespread mineralisation with a maximum grade of 6,068ppm TREO (that’s high), including the highest dysprosium & terbium and highest neodymium and praseodymium values intercepted to date.
Mineralised rare earth clays also contain low cerium, and low thorium and uranium which could make it easier to process.
Although these are only partial results – 65% of holes remain outstanding — they have already confirmed TAR’s geological model and shown that it can successfully target clay-hosted rare earths at Morgans Creek, CEO Thomas Line says.
“Most of the significant intercepts start at or near the surface in the top few metres,” he says.
“Some holes were still in mineralisation when the RAB rig was no longer able to achieve adequate sample return, therefore we believe the base of mineralisation runs deeper than our drilling, in multiple areas.”
In addition to starting at or near surface, these results include the highest TREO grades TAR have seen at Morgans Creek, Line says.
“ … the general trend shows that as grade increases so does the heavy rare earth and magnet rare earth content,” he says.
“For example, the average concentrations for intercepts over 1,000ppm TREO was 42% HREO and 30% MREO, with 17% of the MREO being the very high value Dysprosium and Terbium.
“This is extremely promising as higher levels of Dysprosium and Terbium markedly increase REE basket value.
“In summary, the combination of surface mineralisation, favourable geology, low levels of cerium, uranium and thorium, and high-value REE basket composition support strong project fundamentals.
“We eagerly await the remaining >65% of the outstanding assays expected back by the end of the October, which include the bulk of Hydrothermal Hill main strike extension and infill drillholes.”
The $21m market cap stock is up 20% over the past month.
(Up on no news)
In September, minnow M24 uncovered a bunch of rare earth targets within its Ashburton/Gascoyne project tenements in the Gascoyne region of WA.
Recent exploration activities and discoveries made in the region by others — including Dreadnought Resources (ASX: DRE) and Kingfisher Mining (ASX: KFM) — has highlighted the potential of the region, M24 says.
“The Gascoyne has long been the ‘forgotten’ part of the mineral endowment of Western Australia,” managing director Mike Dunbar says.
“Thanks to the recent discoveries in the region made by Dreadnought and Kingfisher, this has finally changed, and we are pleased that the potential is starting to be recognised.
“Our tenement package, which covers approximately 610km2, was secured in 2020 as part of our IPO on the belief that the potential of the area could host significant discoveries, which appears to be being vindicated.”
The $7m market cap stock is up 4% over the past month.
This explorer listed this morning with a bunch of manganese and rare earths projects in the NT and WA.
They include the Amadeus (prospective for manganese), Coomarie (prospective for heavy rare earths), Nolans East (prospective for light rare earths) and Pargee (prospective for heavy rare earths).
BUS raised $5m at 20c per share in an IPO.
Mining
Mining
Mining
Get the latest Stockhead news delivered free to your inbox.
