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Resources Top 5: Chalice spinout hits paydirt in region with 32Moz of undiscovered gold
Mining
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- Falcon Metals reports multiple high grade gold hits, incl. 12m @ 6.18g/t gold from 74m, at flagship project in Victoria
- Matsa Resources discovers pegmatites grading up to 7.4% Li2O across two prospects in Thailand
- Sky Metals identifies multiple undrilled rare earths targets at the Doradilla project in NSW
Here are the biggest small cap resources winners in morning trade, Tuesday February 14.
FALCON METALS (ASX:FAL)
The Chalice Mining (ASX:CHN) spinout has reported multiple high grade gold hits at Ironbark East, part of the flagship Pyramid Hill project in Victoria.
Highlights include 12m @ 6.18g/t gold from 74m, including 1m @ 52.9g/t from 77m – the highest-grade gold intercept to date at Pyramid Hill.
The drill program was focused on infilling around last year’s program which hit 40m @ 2.8g/t Au from 50m, including several 1m intercepts above 10g/t.
FAL has now defined high grade gold over 400m at Ironbark East. A program of more than 50,000m across the wider project remains on track to complete in May.
“Intersecting high-grade mineralisation at Ironbark East over a 400m strike length is a great result and provides us with encouragement ahead of the commencement of our diamond drilling program later this month,” FAL managing director Tim Markwell says.
“The results at Ironbark confirm the potential of diorite to host economic zones of mineralisation, especially with the intersection of a new zone at Ironbark Central announced earlier this month.
“Our success to date gives us the confidence to further ramp up our activity at Pyramid Hill and we look forward to putting out more updates over coming weeks.”
Pyramid Hill was CHN’s No 1 focus before it hit the motherlode at Julimar, and is highly prospective for high-grade gold deposits like the nearby, world-class Fosterville mine.
According to the Victorian government there’s 32Moz of undiscovered gold in the North Bendigo zone where FAL has a dominant landholding.
FAL is notably chaired by Mark Bennett, discoverer of the Nova nickel discovery.
The $46m capped stock is flat year-to-date. It had a massive $23m in the bank at the end of December.
MATSA RESOURCES (ASX:MAT)
The explorer has discovered lithium-bearing pegmatites grading up to 7.4% Li2O across two prospects in Thailand.
Extensive lithium in lepidolite was mapped at Kanchanaburi (6km by 1km area) and Ratchaburi (2km by 500m area)
The most common mineral hard rock lithium miners extract lithium from is called spodumene, but there are other minerals in pegmatites from which lithium can be economically extracted, including lepidolite.
These sources of lithium can be lower in grade and more complex than spodumene to process, but MAT says there are four producers in the Jiangxi province of China — referred to as the lithium capital of Asia — producing lithium carbonate exclusively from lepidolite.
Select Special Prospecting Leases (SPLs) are being fast-tracked so MAT can drill test for continuity, extent and depth of the identified lithium pegmatites.
“What an excellent result, 6km of lithium bearing rocks in an unexplored region is an explorer’s dream,” MAT boss Paul Poli says.
“We believe we have discovered a new lithium province. We’ve only just started to scratch the surface here and with our discovery at Phang Nga, that makes three new discoveries in quick succession. We really don’t know at this point how big these discoveries could be.”
$20m capped MAT also has a 50/50 profit sharing JV over the Devon gold project in WA, where production is expected to kick off in 2024.
MAT is free carried (doesn’t pay anything) for all costs associated with permitting, financing, development, and mining of the Devon pit.
A scoping study completed April 2021 demonstrated a cumulative cash surplus of $40m could be achieved producing 40,000oz at a gold price of $2,250/oz.
TURACO GOLD (ASX:TCG)
(Up on no news)
This West African explorer is hitting paydirt at the 2km-and-growing Satama discovery in Côte d’Ivoire, including a highlight 26m @ 4.82g/t gold from 35m.
This intercept (one of several good ones, we might add) is the best to date at Satama, part of the 690km2 Eburnea gold project.
Satama is a significant, multi-kilometre strike length greenfield gold discovery which is expected to continue to grow, TCG managing director Justin Tremain says.
“We look forward to receiving and reporting results from the reconnaissance, shallow auger drilling recently completed testing the western parallel structures which, if positive, would show substantial growth potential at Satama,” he says.
Following a short break over the Christmas period, exploration activities have now resumed with auger and soil geochemical sampling programs underway at the nearby Odienne project, also in Cote d’Ivoire.
Sprott-backed TCG is run by a team with a history of making money for shareholders.
Tremain himself led Exore Resources ahead of its ~$80m takeover by Perseus Mining (ASX:PRU). He also headed Renaissance Minerals before its takeover by Asian gold producer Emerald Resources (ASX:EMR).
The $26m capped stock is up 8% year-to-date. It had $3.8m in the bank at the end of December.
METRO MINING (ASX:MMI)
(Up on no news)
The junior bauxite miner has done it tough as cost of key inputs put a huge dent in the bottom line, despite strong prices for the aluminium ingredient.
In the December quarter, MMI shipped 1.16 million tonnes at average price of $51.8/t for $60m in revenues.
Higher costs of $52.6/t, not helped by missing guidance by a whisker, meant the company posted a small loss for the quarter.
“It was naturally disappointing not to meet shipping guidance when we had been on track to do so until the last two weeks of December,” MMI boss Simon Wensley says.
“Nevertheless, Q4 has been the best quarter of the year for production and shipping.
“All elements of the supply chain demonstrated lower variability and higher output in the second half of the year.
“It is exciting to move into 2023 targeting a 50% expanded output to meet our committed offtake in a robust market and leveraging the economy of scale advantages across our operations to improve our bottom line.”
Chinese demand for bauxite continues to be strong, the company says.
January to November bauxite imports to China of 116Mt have broken previous records, and pricing remains firm.
This is expected to continue. A ban on Indonesian exports have now been confirmed from June 2023 as the major producer looks to build its own downstream capacity.
About 15% of China’s imports for 2021, or 17.8 million tonnes, were from Indonesia.
“With the combination of negotiated prices and open priced volume in a rising market, MMI’s revenue is expected to increase further in 2023,” the company says.
An expansion to 7Mt per annum remains underway, with MMI targeting sales of 4.5 to 5Mt in 2023 and 6 to 7Mt in 2024.
The $91m capped stock is down 25% year-to-date. It had $15.5m in the bank at the end of December.
SKY METALS (ASX:SKY)
SKY has identified multiple new, completely undrilled rare earths targets at the Doradilla project in NSW.
As the previous work at Doradilla focussed on exploring for tin. Areas not prospective for tin but very prospective for REE have not been drill tested or extensively explored at all.
Most important is the multi-kilometre Midway Granite which SKY reckons is the source of REE at Doradilla.
Results to date show the REE grades are increasing with closer proximity to Midway, SKY says.
Drill testing of these newly targets is planned to commence “as soon as conditions allow, and once drill site preparations have been completed”.
The $20m capped stock is up 10% year-to-date. It had $2m in the bank at the end of December.
