Pic: Via Getty
Mining
Here are the biggest small cap resources winners in early trade, Monday July 24.
LGM will acquire an ancient volcano in NSW’s new England Fold Belt prospective for monster scale copper-gold deposits, it announced Friday.
The Drake project includes a 150sqkm collapsed caldera which bears “similar geological characteristics to other major Pacific Rim settings and deposits, [like the] Porgera Goldfield”.
Calderas, the ‘cauldron like’ hollows which form in an extinct volcano, can host rich ore deposits.
Porgera – which produced +20Moz between 1990 and 2017 — is the second largest mine in Papua New Guinea and one of the world’s top 10 gold mines.
There are multiple ancient copper and gold mines and historical drilling at Drake, which is essentially unexplored by modern standards, LGM says.
“Along with our 100% owned Black Range Project and our Bauloora Project in joint venture with Newmont, the Drake Project now brings LGM’s low-sulphidation epithermal focused tenure to over 1,500sqkm; placing it as the largest explorer for low-sulphidation systems in NSW,” LGM boss Chris Byrne says.
“With upcoming drilling at our Bauloora Project and field campaigns underway at Black Range, we look forward to providing an exploration update shortly on those projects and the strategy at Drake.”
The $10m capped stock is down 25% year to date. It had $1.6m in the bank at the end of March.
NXM hit paydirt a broad first pass, exploratory drill program at MC4.1, part of the Wallbrook gold project neighbouring Northern Star’s (ASX:NST) multi-million ounce Carosue Dam mining operations near Kalgoorlie.
Results included a highlight 12m @ 2.91g/t Au (within 32m @ 1.40g/t Au from 8m) and 4m @ 6.19g/t Au (within 8m @ 3.26g/t Au from 96m).
This is “hugely exciting” for a first ever RC drilling campaign, NXM managing director Andy Tudor says.
“The MC4.1 prospect RC drill program was very exploratory to test key areas of anomalism identified in previous aircore drilling,” Tudor says.
“To receive initial 4 metre composite results of this standard is hugely exciting for the exploration team.
“Not only do these results provide ongoing confidence for the exploration targeting methodology, they also demonstrate the opportunity at Wallbrook gold project – which continues to demonstrate significant gold camp potential.”
$26m capped NXM – which is also hunting for lithium and copper-gold porphyries on Australia’s East Coast – is down 60% year-to-date. It had ~$5m in the bank at the end of May.
Is the perpetually battling gold play about to turn things around?
The high grade Never Never deposit at Dalgaranga is confirmed “a major Australia gold discovery” after GCY upgraded the resource to 3.83Mt @ 5.85g/t for 721,200oz.
Never Never, which remains open at depth, boosts total grade and ounces at Dalgaranga by 40% and 51%, respectively (16.70Mt @ 2.2g/t for 1.183Moz).
“Less than six months ago we established Never Never as a significant new high-grade gold discovery within the Dalgaranga field with a very healthy high-grade resource of 303,000oz @ 4.64g/t,” GCY boss Simon Lawson says.
“Since then, we have been single-minded in focusing on adding high-grade ounces.
“This landmark resource upgrade provides unequivocal evidence that this is one of the most exciting new gold discoveries seen in Western Australia in recent years – and an asset that has clear potential to underpin a potential restart decision for the Dalgaranga processing plant.”
The underground component comprises 1,590oz per vertical metre “over a short strike length with favourable geometry”, Lawson says.
“For all the underground miners out there, that should equate to very profitable mining in the future – particularly given that 1,000oz per vertical metre is generally seen as a strong benchmark for underground mines.”
GCY is focused on adding more high-grade ounces to its inventory with four rigs set to hit extensions at Never Never, a bunch of Never Never ‘lookalikes’, and the new Ink discovery.
GCY is aiming to turn things around again at Dalgaranga, which has been a horrific money sink for shareholders since production first kicked off in 2018.
Sub-par resource drilling meant grades didn’t match what was promised in initial feasibility studies, sending in the company to the wall the following year.
Mined out of its predicament by a $125m recapitalisation, the company merged with nearby junior Firefly Resources in 2021 before new management was forced to shut the loss-making mine again in November last year. Never Never could be the answer to GCY’s prayers.
The $200m capped stock is up 100% year-to-date. It has ~$35m in the bank.
A drill hole has terminated in disseminated sulphides from 38m to 120m at the Liparamba nickel project in Tanzania.
This doesn’t necessarily mean RMI has hit economic nickel mineralisation (we won’t know that until the assays come back from the lab) but the company is sufficiently encouraged enough to upgrade the program to diamond core.
“We found RC drilling was insufficient to reach the intended depths of the defined targets in the given ground conditions,” RMI CEO Andrew Nesbit says.
“Diamond drilling will provide a more reliable drilling methodology, and help ensure holes can reliably reach, and test, all the AMT/ VTEM anomalies identified within the 100-150m depth range, as well as test deeper where warranted.”
The $26m capped nickel-lithium stock is down 30% year-to-date. It had $1.5m in the bank at the end of March.
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