Resources Top 5: Gold, gold and more gold

Tesoro expands size of ‘Ternera’ gold system at El Zorro
Alicanto is knee deep in a 3 rig, 20,000m drilling program to find a ‘company maker’ at Greater Falun
Octanex (gold), Truscott (gold) and Metallica (silica sands) up on no news)

Here are the biggest small cap resources winners in early trade, Tuesday July 6.

OCTANEX (ASX:OXX)

(Up on no news)

In April, the explorer’s share price hit 28-month highs on encouraging early exploration results at its 2,587sqkm ‘Sefton’ gold project in WA.

It has since fallen back, but Octanex believes there could be a big gold resource just waiting to be discovered at Sefton, which is effectively unexplored. Early-stage soil sampling is ongoing.

The ~$7m market cap stock is now up 65% year-to-date.

ALICANTO MINERALS (ASX:AQI)

(Up on no news)

Last month, Alicanto sold a non-core gold project for $5.1m to help to fund ‘aggressive’ exploration at the Greater Falun project in Sweden.

Alicanto is knee deep in a 3 rig, 20,000m drilling program to find a ‘company maker’ at Greater Falun, along strike from the historical Falun mine which produced 28 million tonnes at 4% copper, 4g/t gold, 35g/t silver, 5% zinc and 2% lead. Assays are pending.

The ~$50m market cap stock is up 50% in 2021.

TESORO RESOURCES (ASX:TSO)

The ever-expanding Ternera deposit is part of the ‘El Zorro’ project in Chile, where Tesoro believes it has only scratched the surface.

Today’s maiden drilling result supports that claim.

The first hole drilled into the ‘Ternera East’ target has returned “multiple zones of gold mineralisation” and expanded the overall Ternera gold system by ~500m.

Assays rare pending for 57 diamond drill holes, and the Tesoro team “is prioritising additional drilling at Ternera East to rapidly delineate what is emerging as a major extension to the expanding Ternera gold deposit”.

The ~$90m market cap stock is down 40% year-to-date.

METALLICA MINERALS (ASX:MLM)

(Up on no news)

In June, this long time battler lodged a mining application over its 38 million tonne ‘Cape Flattery’ silica sand project in QLD.

A scoping study is due out soon, and a drilling program will kick off this month.

Industry research firm IMARC Group estimates the global silica sand market could grow from US$7 billion in 2019 to US$20 billion in 2024, Metallica says.

The $20m market cap stock is up 33% in 2021.

TRUSCOTT MINING (ASX:TRM)

(Up on no news)

This sleepy, tightly held NT gold explorer is no stranger to making big gains for no reason.

The~$5m market cap tiddler – which is up 95% year-to-date – is planning drilling in Q4 “against a possible upturn in gold prices and increased interest in the gold sector”.