Resources Top 5: Big tin hits, emerging discoveries, and a mysterious shell company

Venture Minerals pulls up ‘record breaking’ 147m-long tin intercept at Mount Lindsay project
Exec director Grant Davey now owns 12.6% of this shell company Cradle Resources
Ozaurum, Encounter announce promising early-stage exploration results

Here are the biggest resources winners in early trade, Thursday December 16.

VENTURE MINERALS (ASX:VMS)

Venture Minerals has pulled up ‘record breaking’ 147m-long tin intercept at the flagship Mount Lindsay project, where an Underground Feasibility Study recently kicked off.

This hit includes a high-grade zone of 45m @ 2.5% tin and 0.3% tungsten from 93m, or 9m @ 5.9% tin and 0.3% tungsten from 183m.

Mineralisation is still ‘open’ down the hole, with the company awaiting further assay results.

At current metal prices, this 147m drill intersection has an average recovered value of $680 per tonne, making Venture’s flagship Mount Lindsay project “a very attractive proposition for underground mining”.

“This new drilling at Mount Lindsay, focused on the high-grade zones, is starting to unveil the exceptional value that Mount Lindsay truly holds,” managing director Andrew Radonjic says.

Mount Lindsay is already one of the largest undeveloped tin projects in the world, containing +80,000 tonnes of tin metal and, within the same mineralised body, a globally significant tungsten resource containing 3.2Mt of WO3.

The $60m market cap stock is down 8% over the past month. It had $9m in the bank at the end of September.

CRADLE RESOURCES (ASX:CXX)

Exec director Grant Davey now owns 12.6% of this shell company after acquiring ~$670,000 worth of shares in an off-market purchase.

It’s usually a good look when a company’s management has substantial skin in the game.

Cradle has been “focused on assessing and acquiring new business opportunities and assets” since offloading its share in a Tanzanian niobium project mid-year.

The $6m market cap stock had ~$670,000 in the bank at the end of September.

OZAURUM RESOURCES (ASX:OZM)

OZM says the ‘Mulgabbie North’ gold project “is shaping up as an exciting gold discovery story” adjacent to Northern Star’s (ASX:NST) tier 1 Carosue Dam operations in WA.

The explorer is pulling up shallow high-grade gold from an early stage ‘aircore’ drilling program.

Highlights include:

4m @ 3.09 g/t Au from 12m
4m @ 3.03 g/t Au from 64m
4m @ 2.00 g/t Au from 44m

The gold zone – hidden under a blanket of transported cover which has hampered previous exploration — is now 4.2km long and 150m wide and remains ‘open’ to the north and south.

Several exciting new targets have been identified for future RC drilling, OZM CEO Andrew Pumphrey says.

“The discovery of a new widespread zone of gold mineralisation within the Mulgabbie North project, which now extends over 4.2 km, provides us with even greater confidence in the large-scale potential of the project,” he says.

“In particular, we are excited by the potential of this area where the host rocks are intermediate felsic volcaniclastic units – very similar to the Northern Star Carosue Dam, Karari, and Whirling Dervish Gold Mines.

“Extensive supergene gold mineralisation situated with the magnetic destruction zone on the very steep gravity gradient makes for exciting new targets to be tested with future RC and diamond drilling.”

The recently listed $8m market cap stock is down 3% over the past month. It had $6m in the bank at the end of September.

ENCOUNTER RESOURCES (ASX:ENR)

More promising early-stage exploration results.

Surface sampling at ENR’s ‘Sandover’ copper project in the NT confirmed high grade copper (up to 20.9%) at four separate areas totalling over 6km of strike.

More on-ground mapping is planned to start in March/April 2022.

“The confirmation of outcropping high-grade copper over a large area is a promising start to exploration at Sandover,” managing director Will Robinson says.

“Further areas of interest have been identified at Sandover and will be sampled at the start of the 2022 field season.

“We are engaging with experts in Zambian style copper deposits to assist in the design of exploration programs to fast track this emerging copper opportunity in the Northern Territory.”

Sandover also includes lithium potential “which will continue to be investigated in conjunction with the copper exploration activities”.

The $48m market cap stock is down 6% over the past month. It had $4.1m in the bank at the end of September.

RECHARGE METALS (ASX:REC)

The ASX newcomer is focussed on the ‘Brandy Hill South’ copper-gold project, 25km south of Silver Lake Resources’ (ASX:SLR) Deflector deposit in WA.

Yesterday, it announced that drilling had restarted following a 4 hole program in November.

Assays are pending from this program, but the company reckons they look pretty good.

“The initial four holes, completed in early November, based upon visual estimates of mineral abundance during geological logging, all intersected thick zones of copper sulphide mineralisation, occurring within ultramafic dolerites with quartz veining, with three holes terminating in visual copper mineralisation,” REC managing director Brett Wallace says.

The current RC drilling program comprises a further fifteen holes to see how big this thing actually is.

The $7.5m market cap stock listed in October with about ~$5.3m in the bank.