Resources Top 5: Evidence that pigs can fly as Vault makes long-awaited return to shareholders

• VAU achieved a 221% increase in underlying EBITDA to $619.4m, with cash of $685.9m in the bank and no debt
• Excellent bio-leaching recovery rates have been returned for rare earths and lithium from OCT’s Byro project 
• Rock chip results up to 7,792g/t silver, 50.6% copper and 224g/t germanium from Central Otavi in Namibia

Your standout small cap resources stocks for Thursday, August 21, 2025

Vault Minerals (ASX:VAU)

Watching this year’s gold bull run must be the closest thing to watching Jesus turn water into wine.

Thanks to bullion’s extraordinary 2024 and 2025 miners are printing insane profits, and pigs are flying all over the ASX this financial reporting season.

So it is the case at Vault Minerals (ASX:VAU), which is finally making a capital return to shareholders more than 20 years into the life of it and its predecessor Silver Lake Resources.

As the owner of WA’s King of the Hills, Deflector and Mt Monger mines posted a $237m after tax profit on Thursday, it announced a plan to buy back up to 10% of its shares on-market over the next 12 months. Investors are utterly jubilant.

Silver Lake never paid a dividend before its merger with Red 5, the previous owner of the King of the Hills gold mine.

But even with a bevy of out-of-the-money hedges, the run in the gold price to over $5000/oz has still floated its boat.

VAU sold 385,232oz at an all-in sustaining cost of $2422/oz in FY25, generating $1.43bn in sales revenue at an average realised price of $3684/oz after delivering 158,684oz into forward sales at $2680/oz.

That powered a 221% increase in underlying EBITDA to $619.4m, with cash of $685.9m in the bank and no debt. There’s a big inflection point coming as hedges roll off – with 61% of sales to head into the spot market in H1 FY26 rising to 95% by H1 FY27.

At current forward prices, VAU’s average sales price is expected to lift from $4315/oz this half to $4605/oz in H2 and $5067/oz by H1 FY27.

The buyback announcement was a “clear signal of confidence”, according to VAU MD Luke Tonkin, who says the Vault board sees its shares as undervalued. Its shares closed 11.9% higher, giving Vault a market cap of $3.23bn – the buyback will be well covered by its existing cash pile at these levels.

It proved to be the perfect moment for Tonkin to take his exit on a high, with Vault announcing the gold executive’s intention to step down in the next 12 months. An executive search process has started.

He has been with the company for almost 12 years through its Silver Lake and Vault iterations, and sat in the big chair since November 2014.

Octava Minerals (ASX:OCT)

Bio-leaching recovery rates for rare earths and lithium from the Byro project in the Gascoyne Region of WA have been described by Octava Minerals (ASX:OCT) as excellent and resulted in shares soaring 81.6% to a daily top of 6.9c.

Recoveries in tests by leading European Biomining specialist BiotaTec have prompted Octava to consider advancing the Byro project to its next development stage.

The test program achieved recovery rates of 68% to 75% for the key magnet metals of neodymium, praseodymium and dysprosium, which are used in computer hard drives, wind turbine generators, electric motors and medical devices. 

It also delivered recoveries of around 40% for lithium, vanadium and terbium, which are key components of battery technologies.

BiotaTec microbial cultures were used to extract the elements and other key metals from the Byro project material.

Bioleaching capacity reached its peak within the first two days, indicating strong potential for a fast-tracked heap leach operation.

BiotaTec believes that further optimisation will improve the metal recoveries and upscale the process.

Added interest in Octava’s story is coming from the west coast of Tasmania where the company recently announced an option to acquire the Federation project, a legacy site that has gone untouched for decades despite strong hints of copper, zinc and silver.

Federation has potential to offer the cheapest exposure to any narrative around a resurgence of interest in minerals in the island state.

Drilling by Renison Bell at the Sweeney’s prospect picked up 23m at 1.19% copper, 1.7% zinc, 121g/t silver and 1.17% tin in one hole reported in 1977.

Another collected 24m at 0.25% copper, 0.52% zinc, 42g/t silver and 0.27% tin with accessory antimony and fluorite, both critical minerals today.

Octava has 12 months to complete due diligence on the project, which has only been subject to a handful of historical drill holes.

“Our geos are on the ground right now, actually. They’ve gone to site and they’re going to be checking out the area at Federation, especially around Sweeney’s,” Octava MD Bevan Wakelam said.

“They’ll be checking out some of the old workings there and also scoping out options for drilling.”

Golden Deeps (ASX:GED)

Rock chip results of up to 7,792g/t silver, 50.6% copper and 224g/t germanium along with 22.4% zinc and 28% lead from the Central Otavi project in Namibia sent Golden Deeps (ASX:GED) soaring 42.9% to a daily high of 5c.

The results are from several new gossans, including at the Graceland prospect in Target Area 6, newly-identified gossans at G1 East on the Gossan 1 Corridor and a second newly-identified gossan at G2 North on the Gossan 2 Corridor.

Soil sampling and rock chip sampling has doubled the strike-length of Gossan 1 Corridor and expanded the footprint of the mineralised zone to 2km x 1km.

“The high-grades of the critical rare metal, germanium are very important, as it is a vital component for semi-conductors and photo-voltaic cells, but is restricted from the market by China, CEO Jon Dugdale said:

“Trenching and channel sampling has been completed and an IP geophysical survey will commence shortly to define drilling targets for very high-grade polymetallic sulphide bodies.”

Kingsland Minerals (ASX:KNG)

Testwork has resulted in Kingsland Minerals producing battery-grade purified spherical graphite from its Leliyn project in WA and shares reached 18.5c, a lift of 23.34%.

Testing of graphite concentrate initially produced PSG with grades of up to 99.96% using low temperature alkaline bake methods.

An additional dilute acid wash was then used and the grade increased to 99.97%, which more than qualifies the PSG as being battery-grade and suitable for use in lithium-ion batteries.

This follows Kingsland Minerals’ (ASX:KNG) tests earlier this month finding that it could potentially produce a gallium by-product from muscovite and biotite mica concentrate obtained from material previously used to extract a graphite concentrate.

Leliyn has a resource of 194.6Mt grading 7.3% total graphitic carbon and is the subject of a scoping study that contemplates a mine and processing facility producing 94% spherical graphite concentrate.

“These are clearly exceptional results which show our strategy to be a leading graphite provider to the EV and renewable energy sectors is well on track,” MD Richard Maddocks said.

Ausgold (ASX:AUC)

The acquisition of a key parcel of freehold land has cleared a hurdle for Ausgold on the track to develop its Katanning gold project in WA’s Great Southern region with shares trading up to 75.5c, an increase of almost 24.8%.

The ~860 hectare parcel will simplify mine plans and remove artificial constraints to the ore reserve as it had covered a material proportion of the project’s resource of 2.44Moz and about 212 hectares of Mining Licence ML70/211.

It also ends a legal case running since August 2023 through which Ausgold (ASX:AUC) had sought to enforce its right to mine on Mining Licence ML70/211.

The company will now re-optimise its June 2025 DFS to capitalise on not having to remain within the eastern boundary of the mining licence.

Ausgold is paying $35m for the land with the first $15m payable on August 26, 2025, and the remainder to be paid upon the earlier of FID or August 26, 2026. 

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent financial advice before making any financial decisions. While Octava Minerals, Kingsland Minerals and Ausgold are Stockhead advertisers, they did not sponsor this article.