Resources Top 5: Gold explorers take the cake

Panther Metals starts drilling at Burtville East
New Murchison Gold still up on yesterday’s news of visible gold at Crown Prince
Three other stocks are up on no news

Your standout small-cap resources stocks on Tuesday, March 11, 2025.

Panther Metals (ASX:PNT)

A 2000m drilling program has taken off at the Burtville East gold project, testing potential extensional zones to bonanza-grade intercepts returned in 2024 and 2022 such as 15m at 53.94g/t gold from 27m, including 1m at 478g/t gold from 28m.

The project sits on the western edge of the larger Laverton gold project (LGP), which spans 265km2 of highly prospective and underexplored gold targets in WA’s prolific goldfields region, and strikes more than 35km along the LGP trend.

PNT’s landholding contains historic underground workings and existing mineralised stockpiles ready for treatment.

Maiden drilling in 2022 discovered multiple gold-rich quartz lodes adjacent to the main Burtville East (BE) lode from just six RC holes over a total of 577m and two diamond holes over a total of 147m.

Exploration last year returned more wide, high-grade intercepts including multiple 1m grade peaks up to 127g/t gold.

PNT managing director Daniel Tuffin said the company’s analysis of last quarter’s drill campaign underscored the need for additional funding to explore for any potential gold extensions at Burtville East and capitalise on the current strong gold price.

“The company will also utilise this programme to advance the project via probing historic workings for future bulk sampling activities, conducting metallurgical and mineralogical studies to support mining reviews and assessing the existing high-grade stockpiles for potential monetisation,” Tuffin noted.

BCI Minerals (ASX:BCI)

(Up on no news)

While BCI had no news out today, it had, at the end of February 2025, received WA Department of Water and Environmental Regulation approval for the second phase of the Groundwater Monitoring and Management Plan for its Mardie salt and potash project on the Pilbara coast.

The company is now in the process of obtaining approval for the second phase of the GMMP from the federal government’s Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water as the final step in enabling production.

This final approval will support the company’s target of achieving first salt on ship in Q2 FY2027.

Mardie is expected to sustainably produce 5.35Mtpa of high-purity sodium chloride (table salt) and 140,000tpa of potash fertiliser, making it Australia’s largest and the world’s third largest solar salt project.

The project has sufficient resources to support an operating life of over 60 years.

Committed sales have already been secured for 70-80% of production with the balance expected to be sold on the spot market.

Salt production is expected to deliver EBITDA of $266m while potash production will add another $99m.

Aurelia Metals (ASX:AMI)

(Up on no news)

Aurelia’s last bit of news, released barely a week ago on March 6, 2025, revealed that the company directors had approved the peak tailings and process management upgrade project for its Cobar Basin operations in NSW.

The project involves the installation of a new tailings thickener and repurposing the current tailings thickener as an additional leach feed thickener, with associated pumps and ancillary equipment.

This will decrease dewatering of the leach feed and tailings streams, improving the process water balance, including restricting recycled leach water to the leach circuit. It is expected to boost recoveries of copper and zinc by 2.5%, while also reducing consumption of cyanide.

Approved capex for the upgrade project is $9.6m and is expected to deliver net present value and internal rate of return – both measures of profitability – of $18m and 51% respectively.

The upgrade project is the first of three that will be presented to the company’s board in FY2025 to boost the company’s value and deliver on its ambition to process 1.1-1.2Mtpa of ore from its Cobar region operations.

NSW’s Cobar Basin is one of the oldest mining centres in New South Wales, delivering 3Mt of copper metal and over 2Moz of gold across more than 140 years of continuous operations, along with significant quantities of lead, zinc and silver.

Alongside Glencore’s CSA mine, the Endeavor mine is also there along with Aurelia Metals’ Hera, Peak and Dargues operations, including the new zinc-rich Federation mine, as well as exciting recent discoveries like Peel Mining’s (ASX:PEX) Wagga Tank and Mallee Bull polymetallic deposits and Australian Gold and Copper’s (ASX:AGC) Achilles discovery near Lake Cargelligo.

Aruma Resources (ASX:AAJ)

(Up on no news)

AAJ has responded to an ASX query regarding the company’s share price and increase in volume of shares traded today, stating it is unaware of any information concerning its activities that has not already been announced.

The company’s share price has surged 60% from a low off 8c at the close of trade on Thursday to an intraday high of 16c at the time of writing.

Multiple high-grade gallium assay results were reported at the Talmine prospect within the larger Saltwater asset in WA’s Pilbara in February, following a program of ongoing soil and rock chip sampling.

A total 16 samples graded higher than 24g/t gallium, including stand out results of 136g/t gallium, 60.87g/t gallium and 39.29g/t gallium.

Two gallium in soil anomalies were also identified and defined as ‘geophysical anomalies’ at both the Talmine and Terceira prospects.

Gallium, a critical mineral used in high-tech applications such as semiconductors, solar panels, infrared circuits and LEDs, has captured the hearts and wallets of investors following China’s introduced export controls on the metal last year.

New Murchison Gold (ASX:NMG)

(Up on yesterday’s news)

NMG intersected visible gold in diamond drill core at the Crown Prince target earlier this week.

The program was designed to target extensions down plunge of the south eastern zone (SEZ) mineralisation, outside of the high-grade Crown Prince resource area.

NMG said the visible gold in NGGRCDD974 is the deepest example of gold mineralisation at the south-eastern zone (SEZ) zone of the Crown Prince gold deposit and is strongly encouraging for a continuation of mineralisation at depth.

Diamond drilling is ongoing with assays expected to be received in around two to three weeks.