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Mining
Here are the biggest small cap resources winners in morning trade, Thursday July 6.
The advanced Canada lithium play hit a massive 74.4 metres of continuous spodumene-bearing pegmatite in its first hole of the summer drilling program at Mavis Lake.
The record intercept is outside the current 8Mt lithium resource envelope “and is expected to result in a meaningful increase in total resource tonnage”, CRR says.
While CRR maiden resource released in May appeared to underwhelm the market, CRR managing director Alex Cheeseman always said it was the plan “to double it in short order”.
“As a maiden resource it’s a solid effort but it is also a first line in the sand,” he told Stockhead.
“Core Lithium’s (ASXS:CXO) maiden resource at the Finniss project was 1.5Mt. Pilbara Minerals’ (ASX:PLS) maiden resource was 8.6Mt.
“This is a start point.”
Extensional drilling will continue throughout the next few months to support a future resource upgrade, CRR says, with first assays due in the next 6-8 weeks.
The company also plans to test its Gullwing and Tot Lakes pegmatites which are contiguous to the Mavis Lake tenements.
Here there are 8km of pegmatite clusters which could add further to the resource base, CRR says.
The $100m capped stock is up 50% year-to-date. It had $5.6m in the bank at the end of March.
TTM has unveiled a monster 3.1Moz gold, 22Moz silver maiden resource at the Dynasty project in Ecuador.
That includes a significant high-grade component — 17.3Mt @ 3.77g/t gold, 24.0g/t silver for a contained 2.09Moz gold and 13.33Moz silver.
Over half the resources, positioned along a 9km long corridor, are less than 100m from surface. With less than half the system tested more drilling to add ounces will commence in the coming months, the company says.
“Titan aspires to emulate the success of Lundin Gold Inc. (TSX:LUG) and their world-class Fruta del Norte Gold Project in southeast Ecuador, an epithermal gold-silver intermediate sulphidation system with many similarities to Dynasty and containing Mineral Resources of 9.81 Moz gold and 15.0 Moz silver,” TTM CEO Melanie Leighton says.
“Touted as one of the highest grade, lowest cost mines in the world, Fruta del Norte commenced operation in 2019, and in 2022 total revenue was $841 million.”
TTM acquired Dynasty early 2020 following a bruising 18-month ‘David and Goliath’ battle with Zhaojin Mining; a $30bn, +650,000ozpa Chinese gold producer which also wanted the asset.
“Zhaojin clearly understood the opportunity, they knew what they were looking at – an already big project with opportunities for massive scale,” former Freo Docker tagger and Titan exec director Matty Carr told Stockhead at the time.
The $105m capped stock is flat year-to-date. It had US$2.4m in the bank at the end of March.
Global lithium producer SQM (NYSE:SQM) will spend up to $3m on exploration to earn up to 70% of TMB’s early stage Julimar North projects in WA.
This strategic investment by SQM is a strong endorsement of Julimar Nth and its lithium potential, the company says.
“The new relationship will allow TMB to draw upon SQM’s technical expertise in pegmatite hosted lithium exploration while allowing Tambourah to work in parallel on its other Lithium and Critical Mineral projects,” TMB CEO Ralf Kriege says.
US$20bn capped SQM – which made US$1.65bn gross profit in the March quarter – has inked deals with other Aussie juniors, most notably Azure Minerals (ASX:AZS).
In January, SQM paid $20m for a 19.99% stake in the company, which then went on to uncover a potentially monstrous deposit at Andover.
$6m capped TMB is up 45% year-to-date. It had $3.1m in the bank at the end of March.
Other monstrous resource upgrade, this time of the copper variety.
ALM’s Briggs porphyry project in QLD is now in the Top 10 largest undeveloped copper projects in Australia with a new resource estimate of 415Mt @ 0.25% Cu + 31ppm Mo (0.2% cutoff).
That’s ~1 million tonnes of contained copper and +28.6Mlbs of molydenum, the company says.
There’s potential to grow this further, with both the Northern Porphyry and Briggs central deposits remaining open, and the Southern Porphyry Target not included in this resource at all.
Drilling will resume in early Q3 2023.
“This is a great result for shareholders and confirms our view that Briggs is a nationally significant porphyry copper deposit that is likely to grow substantially with further drilling,” managing director Frazer Tabeart says.
“With a looming global copper shortage predicted by many market observers, the emergence of this large resource is perfectly timed.”
When it comes to porphyry deposits, size counts.
These multigenerational monsters are responsible for ~60 per cent of the world’s copper, most of its molybdenum, and significant amounts of gold and silver.
Their easy-mining large volumes make up for the low grades, typically between 0.3 per cent to 1 per cent copper equivalent.
ALM inked a deal with Canterbury Resources (ASX:CBY) in August 2021 to earn up to 70% of Briggs by spending up to $15.25m on exploration over nine years.
The $20m capped stock is up 50% year-to-date. It recently raised $2m via placement.
The gold hunter previously known as Los Cerros is hitting serious paydirt at the Kusi target in PNG.
Hole KU23DD005 returned a highlight 77.9m @ 1.53g/t gold from 118.1m (including 56m @ 1.97g/t Au from 124m) plus 12.2m @ 5.15g/t gold, 2.5% zinc from 270.3m.
These were also the first holes to report elevated copper values, the company says.
All five drill holes of LCL’s maiden Kusi drilling program have now delivered intercepts exceeding 50gram-metres. Drilling continues as part of the 3000m campaign.
“A metal factor exceeding 50gm gold from early stage drilling is very exciting and considered a drill result worthy of follow-up drilling,” LCL geo John Dobe says.
“That every hole we have drilled exceeds this marker, with some reaching nearly 200gm, is a testament to the compelling nature of this developing discovery.”
The advanced South American gold stock recently diversified into PNG as it waits for “greater clarity on new government mine development policies” in Colombia.
LCL’s 2.6Moz Quinchia project in Colombia is currently the focus of low-cost project development studies.
The $35m capped explorer is down 33% year-to-date. It had $8.6m in the bank at the end of March.
At Stockhead, we tell it like it is. While Alma Metals is a Stockhead advertiser, it did not sponsor this article.
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