Resources Top 5: 'Blind' gold discoveries, thick copper, and a new high purity alumina stock bolts out of the gate

Surefire Resources makes ‘blind’ gold discovery
New high purity alumina stock ChemX debuted on the ASX late yesterday
Helix Resources hit thick copper sulphides at Canbelego discovery

Here are the biggest small cap resources winners in early trade, Wednesday January 19.

HELIX RESOURCES (ASX:HLX)

This exploration microcap rerated in March 2021 after hitting 29.5m of copper sulphides at the advanced 1.5Mt Canbelego project in NSW, a joint venture with miner Aeris Resources (ASX:AIS).

It quickly fell back from those highs, but the ~30 drill holes completed in 2021 at Canbelego and the nearby CZ deposit continued to hit copper in nearly every hole.

Today – in its first ann of 2022 — HLX says a recently completed diamond hole pulled up 29m of copper-sulphides at the ‘Main Zone’ target position, about 50m down dip from the high-grade intercept of 18m at 3.4% copper intersected in May last year.

It includes ~1.3m of massive to semi-massive chalcopyrite (the high-grade stuff) from 425.2m depth.

HLX says a 12 to 15-hole RC drill program has kicked off to test for parallel copper lode positions – a common feature of ‘Cobar style’ deposits.

“It’s still very early days but we are also very interested to test the concept of repeat lodes which is typical for the ’Cobar Style’ of copper deposits, which are often blind at surface or have small footprints but can extend for up to several thousand metres vertically,” managing director Mike Rosenstreich says.

“The mineralisation we observed higher in the hole may correlate with anomalous copper mineralised zones hit at shallow levels in drill hole 5 last year.

“This fits with an observed trend in some other historical drill holes in the project area and has helped develop our emerging parallel lode target concept.”

All drill assays are pending and are expected late March/early June 2022 quarter, HLX says.

The ~$25m market cap stock is up 10% over the past month, and 120% over the past year. It had $3.7m in the bank at the end of September.

CHEMX MATERIALS (ASX:CMX)

Listing late yesterday, CMX is joining a small but mighty group of ASX high purity alumina stocks like FYI Resources (ASX:FYI), Alpha HPA (ASX:A4N) and Altech (ASX:ATC).

Demand for high purity alumina (HPA) — a specialised product used in lithium-ion batteries, LED lights, and more – is growing at a rapid rate.

When it comes to lithium-ion batteries, HPA is currently used as the coating on the separator between the anode and cathode. It also has several other growing applications.

CMX currently has a dual focus — exploring the ‘Eyre Peninsula’ halloysite, kaolin and manganese projects and developing its upstream HiPurA HPA processing tech.

Drilling at the Eyre Peninsula projects is expected to kick off in the current quarter.

The stock is currently up 30% on its IPO price of 20c per share. It has about $8m in the bank.

ASTON MINERALS (ASX:ASO)

Tolga Kumova-chaired ASO was “astounded by the potential scale of the system” when it first hit nickel-copper-cobalt sulphides in drilling at the ‘Edleston’ project in Canada last year.

The mineralisation style intersected at the ‘Boomerang’ target bore significant parallels to that of BHP’s (ASX:BHP) world class Mt Keith Ni-Cu mine, ASO also said, ambitiously.

Today’s hit at the Bardwell prospect at Boomerang — a thick 163m long intercept grading 0.52% nickel & 0.016% cobalt, ending in mineralisation – supports that thesis.

“The substantial intersection at Bardwell prospect has exceeded our expectations in relation to both the grade and extent of mineralisation,” managing director Dale Ginn says.

“To have such broad zones of mineralisation at comparable grades to that of Mt Keith so early on in our nickel exploration program provides us with a huge degree of confidence in the potential of the system.”

More drilling results are due out soon.

ASO, which has started a resource definition drilling program at the ~1km long Bardwell, continues ‘step out’ along the 5.5km long Boomerang target.

The $110m market cap stock is up 11% over the past month, and 205% over the past year. It had $8.9m in the bank at the end of September.

SUREFIRE RESOURCES (ASX:SRN)

This $17m gold-iron ore minnow is looking to kick start its floundering share price with some promising gold hits at the ‘Yidby Road’ project in WA.

Highlight hits from a recent drilling program include a super thick 52m @ 1.40g/t gold from 65m, including 19m @ 2.93g/t from 65m.

This drillhole confirms “an exceptionally broad near-flat lying gold mineralised zone” exists in the south of the original discovery area at Yidby.

It remains open in all directions, the company says.

This is also a ‘blind’ discovery; the area is covered by up to 20m of barren transported overburden that overlies and masks the gold mineralisation.

It was found using a method called Mobile Metal Ions (MMI) geochemistry, and its success opens up a whole bunch of areas to drill.

The exploration work completed to date is focussed on the 1.6km long MMI gold anomalies on the western flank. The eastern flank is yet to be tested by drilling, SRN says.

SRN is up 40% over the past month, and down 30% over the past year. It had $2.9m in the bank at the end of September.

CELSIUS RESOURCES (ASX:CLA)

CLA is focussed on copper-gold exploration and development in the Philippines.

Its assets were owned by Freeport-McMoRan, one of the world’s largest copper-gold producers, before being opportunistically acquired and subsequently vended into CLA.

In anticipation of December scoping study on the ‘MCB’ copper-gold porphyry project the company initiated a board restructure.

It hired a new managing director Robert Gregory, a mining engineer with a “strong track record in investor relations, capital raising and shareholder liaison”.

CCLA have today added to their board with the appointment of veteran stockbroker Jonathan Colvile as non-executive director.

The $28m market cap stock is up 60% over the past month, and down 36% over the past year. It had $5.1m in the bank at the end of September.