• Brazil-focused, Rinehart-backed BRE has made its ASX entrance
  • Metalicity and Nex Metals sort differences, move ahead in gold JV
  • BMO, KP2, NYM also among the ressie gainers

 

Here are some of the biggest resources winners in early trade, Thursday December 21.

 

Brazilian Rare Earths (ASX:BRE)

Making a big entrance on the bourse today is a big, new minerals explorer – Brazilian Rare Earths, already clocking a 14% gain at time of writing, which is more than decent considering this thing enters with a market cap of more than $315 million.

The company owns and operates some large ground in northeastern Brazil – some 461km2 – and raised $50 million at IPO (managed by Canaccord and Petra Capital) with shares priced at $1.47.

That share price has shot up to $1.69 since listing late this morning.

Most notably, Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting is heavily backing the company, as one of its top 10 shareholders, having grabbed a big piece of the pie pre-IPO.

A maiden JORC resource of 169 million tonnes at 1526 ppm (parts per million) total rare earth oxides is certainly nothing to sneeze at.

This, of course, doesn’t yet put BRE in the same league as Serra Verde, also in Brazil, but the company believes the potential is there.

Serra Verde is one of the world’s biggest non-Chinese ionic clay-hosted REE projects with an MRE of 911Mt at 1,200ppm TREO and an ore reserve of 350Mt at 1,500ppm TREO.

Commenting on the ASX listing, CEO and MD of BRE Bernardo da Veiga said a few things about “exceptional success” and “dedicated team of talented professionals”, also revealing:

“We now intend to accelerate our exploration across this world class rare earths province – and we look forward to the near-term results of our recently completed diamond drilling program at the Monte Alto Project and the assay results from the Rio Tinto Amargosa project.”

And here’s something that caught our eye…

As pointed out by “YellowStripes”, there, the $28m market capper Equinox Resources (ASX:EQN) is also hunting for REEs in the Minas Gerais, Brazil.

In fact, with recent staking of its new Mata da Corda REE project, EQN has expanded the company’s exploration reach to a whopping 2,550km2.

Big market cap vs little market cap, on the REE hunt in the same area, not far from each other. Things that make you go, hmm?

Meanwhile, Meteoric Resources (ASX:MEI) is another prominent REE hunter in the Brazilian mining state, boasting head-turning results from its Caldeira project this year and posting a 324% YTD return. MEI has a $443m market cap.

BRE share price

 

Metalicity (ASX:MCT)

Metalicity has executed formal agreements and settled all disputes with Nex Metals regarding the Kookynie and Yundamindra gold joint venture in WA.

MCT will now hold 80% of the JV, up from 51% and will remain the manager of the JV.

MD Justin Barton said: “This is another positive step forward for both parties, and for the development of the highly prospective and high grade Kookynie and Yundamindra projects.

“Both parties remain focused on finalising the remaining conditions of the agreement to allow both parties to move forward and focus on their own business activities into 2024.”

In October, Metalicity revealed it was ramping up exploration of greenfields and brownfields targets at the Kookynie JV, with initial exploration focusing on undrilled targets at the Mulga Plum and Wandin prospects.

“The Kookynie project has delivered some great exploration results over the last 4 years,” MD Justin Barton said at the time, “and we are excited to begin following up these targets and exploring new prospects at Mulga Plum and Wandin.”

MCT share price

 

Bastion Minerals (ASX:BMO)

This small copper, lithium and green metals hunter made the Top 5 ressie gainers’ grade this time yesterday, and by jingo, by crikey, it’s done it again.

Yesterday, it was all about the two highly prospective lithium, REE and gold projects in Western Australia it’s just acquired.

Today, it’s this: pXRF (portable X-Ray fluorescence) analysis has determined an ultra-high-grade REE + Y (yttrium) trend out at the Gyttorp REE project in southern Sweden.

Visual chalcopyrite, too.

Some specifics in the discovery include up to 23% REE+Y, including 5.9% Nd Pr from one sample. And up to 13%, 10%, 8% and 6% REE+Y from four others.

The company notes the area sampled is located on the southern end of a belt of iron and REE-enriched skarns, more than 100 kilometre long, known locally as the “REE-line” with Bastnas type REE mineralisation.

BMO share price

 

Kore Potash (ASX:KP2)

(Up on no news)

Here’s another potash poker coming up roses lately.

Potash fertiliser has seen some decent action of late on the bourse, what with some recent gains from Reward Minerals (ASX:RWD) and Highfield Resources (ASX:HFR).

Kore Potash has it in its title, though, so you know it’s serious about the stuff.

The London-listed company has actually been doing very well lately. It’s up 44% over the past week and 77% over the past month. YTD, it’s now up 33%.

KP2 is developing a big potash project called Kola, in the Republic of Congo. Last we clocked in, financing, offtake and construction talks were underway.

And in late October, the company raised US$2.5 million via placement to existing large shareholders, in order to advance work that Kore says is “expected to lead to delivery of an Engineering, Procurement and Construction (“EPC”) contract for Kola.

Why’s it up 33-odd% today, though? We’re not exactly sure as the news seems deader than the basil plant I bought from Woolies and then neglected to water.

The last piece of news on the ASX, however, regarded a substantial holder – David Andrew Hathorn – taking a slice of the action with a +8% stake in the company.

Hathorn is actually the company’s chairman and interim CEO, having taken over from one Brad Sampson, who left the company in November.

Kore reportedly plans to keep Hathorn in the role at least until the financing arrangements for the Kola project are all wrapped up.

KP2 share price

 

Narryer Metals (ASX:NYM)

(Up on no news)

This critical minerals hunter has projects across lithium, nickel and rare earths in Canada and Australia and it actually burst into the ressie gainers lead today with a +53% lift.

News? Nope. Volume? Meh, 67,951.

As there’s not much to go on, we’ll refer you back to an October report we put together on promising junior ASX explorers in the clean energy niche.

The company’s non-exec chair Richard Bevan told us:

“We recently acquired five projects in Ontario and Quebec. It’s a really hot piece of geology in the world at the moment.”

Pontax East, Le Moyne and Walrus Island are in the hot James Bay lithium district in Quebec, while in Ontario, Narryer is looking to prove up lithium deposits at the Eades and Hailstone tenements.

“We’ve acquired these early-stage projects, where very little work’s been done [and] we’ve got our CEO and managing director Gavin England on the ground at the moment engaging with the communities and doing a first pass on some exploration,” Beven said at the time.

“For us, it’s the opportunity to take a really greenfield piece of geology and there’s plenty of upside.”

NYM share price

 

At Stockhead we tell it like it is. While Metalicity is a Stockhead advertiser at the time of writing, it did not sponsor this article. 

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