Resources Top 5: Gold and silver M&A kick off Fri-YAY

Advanced Metals acquires 23Moz silver equivalent project in Mexico
Javelin Minerals snaps up Delta Lithium’s Eureka gold mine
Lanthanein Resources receives PoW grant to drill next to historical gold plays

Here are the biggest small cap resources winners in morning trade, Friday, October 25.

Advance Metals (ASX:AVM)

AVM is alive and kicking, the biggest gainer this morning by a mile on the acquisition of the high-grade Yoquivo project in Mexico with existing resources of 17.23Moz silver equivalent at 570g/t silver equivalent.

The Yoquivo district is a past-producing, epithermal vein gold and silver region with numerous bonanza-grade silver drill intersections scattered throughout the project area including highlights of 1.2m at 34g/t gold and 1895g/t silver from 47.3m.

AVM entered into a binding sale agreement with NYSE-listed Golden Minerals Company who’ve completed in excess of 16,500m of drilling at Yoquivo since 2020.

The acquisition of the Yoquivo Project represents a very low-cost opportunity to establish a foothold in the silver sector against the backdrop of 12-year-high silver prices.

AVM is planning a program of systematic exploration and further drilling (subject to all requisite approvals being received) to seek to establish a maiden JORC (2012) resource as well as demonstrate significant mineralisation upside potential.

Javelin Minerals (ASX:JAV)

JAV is tapping into WA’s booming gold sector following a deal to buy the Eureka gold mine from Delta Lithium (ASX:DLI) for an upfront payment of $1.5m cash and $1.5m in shares.

Eureka, 54km north-northwest of Kalgoorlie in WA’s Eastern Goldfields region, is just 20km from the major Paddington gold mine and near several other producing mines, placing it close to existing infrastructure including mills with production capacity.

The project – which boasts resources of 2.45Mt at 1.42g/t gold or 112,000oz of contained gold – was mined in the early 1990s and then subjected to tribute mining in 2018.

More than half of that resource is in the higher confidence indicated category which provides enough certainty for mine planning.

In the midst of record gold prices and an uptick in mergers and acquisitions, including the finalisation of Westgold Resources’(ASX:WGX) merger with Canada’s Karora Resources and the completion of Silver Lake Resources’ (ASX:SLR) merger with Red 5 (ASX:RED), JAV’s timing couldn’t be better.

The $17.11m market cap explorer now has two brownfields exploration projects 50km either side of Kalgoorlie with immense exploration upside.

“The project meets our strategy perfectly,” JAV executive charman Brett Mitchell said.

“It has an established resource with further known mineralisation and like Coogee, it has been exposed to virtually no modern exploration.”

Redcastle Resources (ASX:RC1)

(Up on no news)

RC1 entered in an agreement to acquire prospecting licence application P 39/6315 in early October, increasing its footprint in WA’s highly prospective Redcastle – Queen Alexandra gold corridor.

The Redcastle project is ~58km east-southeast of the Gwalia gold mine in the highly prospective Leonora-Laverton area, an area delineated by multimillion ounce gold deposits hosted within the greenstone belt of the eastern Yilgarn.

RC1 said the acquisition added 187ha (1.87km2) to its already 1,088ha coverage (10.88km2), enabling broader and more comprehensive investigation of gold mineralisation.

“Favourable exploration results to date on current RC1 tenements support historical sites potentially hosting significant untapped gold mineralisation and underpin RC1’s longer term strategy of acquiring additional interests,” RC1 management said.

Lanthanein Resources (ASX:LNR)

LNR has finally received a program of work (PoW) grant on the Lady Grey project at Mt Holland in WA’s Yilgarn province, which is known for the historical Bounty gold mine that produced ~1.3 Moz gold adjacent to the Lady Grey project tenements.

This allows the company to drill test a modelled conductor plate under Moving Loop EM (MLEM) Survey Line #6.

The MLEM results generated EM conductor model plates representing sources for EM anomalies that coincide with ultra-fine fraction (UFF) soil geochemical anomalies and historical downhole assay data.

LNR technical director Brian Thomas said the company is excited to drill the Line #6 conductor plate, which coincides with a 75ppb UFF soil gold anomaly plus high order nickel and copper anomalies.

The programs of work (PoW) application for drilling on MLEM survey Lines #1-3 is progressing with the spring flora and fauna survey now completed and heritage survey scheduled.

Platina Resources (ASX:PGM)

(Up on no news)

Recent exploration at PGM’s Challa gold project confirmed two new mineralised gold intersections after completing the second phase 1,856m aircore drilling program over 41 holes.

Aircore hole CHAC0155 intersected a mineralised zone of 12m at 0.66g/t Au from 100m (including 4m at 1.7g/t from 100m).

PGM managing director Corey Nolan said it is the first greenfield gold intersection in drilling along the NW trending splay of the cratonscale Challa shear and within western section of the Windimurra igneous intrusive complex.

“The intercept potentially indicates that the entire splay along the rheologically contrasting geological boundary of a mafic and felsic igneous intrusive rock could be mineralised for over 17km on Platina’s tenure,” he said.

Drilling confirmed the presence of gold mineralisation, paving the way for further drilling up dip and along strike.

At Stockhead we tell it like it is. While Javelin Minerals and Lanthanein Resources are Stockhead advertisers, they did not sponsor this article.