• A8G picks up rocks containing high-grade tantalum-tin mineralisation at ‘Barrow Creek’ lithium project
  • Iron ore miner CuFe up 66% in early trade on no news
  • Gold explorer Nexus has almost 100,000m of drilling in the labs. Results are pending

Here are the biggest small cap resources winners in early trade, Friday July 1.

 

AUSTRALASIAN METALS (ASX:A8G)

Explorer A8G is picking up rocks containing high-grade tantalum-tin mineralisation at the newly acquired ‘Barrow Creek’ lithium project in the NT.

The highest grade was 1018ppm tantalum, which was taken from a highly weathered, almost ground level outcrop “of what appears in hand specimen to be almost pure mica” (lithium bearing mineral), A8G says.

This +40m long outcrop was sampled four times, showing consistent mineralisation. Follow-up soil sampling has been completed to expand the potential footprint of mineralisation, with results pending.

A8G is also sampling decent lithium grades at surface — a good sign, it says.

“This high-grade Ta and Sn mineralisation at surface is consistent with historical production in this area and with much higher Ta and Sn prices today, we are very excited about the potential quality of this project,” managing director Qingtao Zeng says.

“Australasian’s management is well connected with lithium and tantalum end users in this space.

“We have commenced some preliminary discussion with concentrate processers in Asia to test our material.

“The tight supply reality has pushed end-users upstream to exploration projects and the company is well positioned to create value for our shareholders through the Barrow Creek project.”

The $10m market cap stock is down 57% year-to-date. It is well funded with $6.1m in the bank at the end of March.

 

GODOLPHIN RESOURCES (ASX:GRL)

(Up on no news)

This explorer recently dived into rare earths, picking up a stake in the advanced ‘Narraburra’ project in NSW.

GRL can earn up to 75% by spending $3m on exploration at the project, which has an existing non-JORC resource estimate of 73.2M tonnes at 1250g/t ZrO2, 327g/t REO, 146g/t Y2O3, 126g/t Nb2O5, 45g/t HfO2, 54g/t Ga2O3 and 118g/t Li2O.

A four-hole diamond drilling program is due to kick off in a couple of weeks.

This will be followed by a 4,000m air core drill program to support upgrading resources to JORC 2012 standard.

“The planned four‐hole diamond cored drill program at Narraburra will be an exciting milestone for Godolphin,” GRL managing director Jeneta Owens says.

“It will mark the commencement of our exploration and feasibility activities at the project and will be the first drilling undertaken at the Narraburra rare earth and rare metal deposit in the last 10 years.

“Commencement of the drilling campaign will follow an extensive review of the project’s existing mineral resource estimate and historical data, which has allowed strategic placement of the diamond drill holes, aimed at testing known mineralisation.

“We also anticipate that core samples from drilling will provide ample samples for planned metallurgical testing which will occur over the coming months.”

The $10m market cap stock is down 20% year-to-date. It had $2.4m in the bank at the end of March.

 

CUFE (ASX:CUF)

(Up on no news)

CuFe’s main game is the small JWD iron ore mine in WA (60% interest), which netted $8.9m revenues (profit: $2.2m) in the March quarter.

But it also has advanced copper assets (hence the name), like the Orlando project in the Northern Territory.

Orlando resources were recently reestimated at 6.6Mt grading 1.8% copper and 0.7 grams per tonne (g/t) gold along with accessory cobalt, bismuth, silver, lead, zinc and iron.

A 4,000m drilling program is now underway to both increase tonnes and boost confidence in the existing resource.

The $23m market cap stock is down 40% year-to-date. It had $9m in the bank at the end of March.

 

NEXUS MINERALS (ASX:NXM)

(Up on no news)

NXM created buzz last year after hitting high grade gold at the emerging ‘Wallbrook’ project in WA.

“There’s a bit of buzz about this one after high-grade results from drilling at its Templar prospect suggested it could be linked to the Crusader prospect some 1.2km away,” Barry Fitz said at the time.

“Comparisons are being made to Northern Star’s (ASX:NST) nearby multi-million-ounce Carosue Dam gold operations.”

Crusader-Templar are now joined into one 1.6km strike mineralised corridor, where drilling is pulling up hits like 11m @ 5.35/t Au (within 77m @ 1.36g/t Au from 14m).

Gold also keeps going at depth.

Earlier this week NXM completed a monster 68,591m reverse circulation (RC), 14,679m diamond drilling program along Crusader-Templar.

Regionally, another 18,590m of reverse circulation drilling was punched into three regional prospects – Branches, Solomon and Clement.

Results are due in July and August, it says.

“Nexus has completed nine months of extensive drilling at the Wallbrook project,” Nexus managing director Andy Tudor says.

We are very excited with the prospectivity of the project and look forward to completing the detailed geological work and interpretation required on a project of this size.

“The geological modelling will allow the company to fully assess the significant amount of information gathered to date and planning future drill programs.”

The $63m market cap stock is down 50% year-to-date. It has about $7.1m in the bank.

 

ALCHEMY RESOURCES (ASX:ALY)

(Up on no news)

The ALY share price has been bouncing all over the joint on some pretty impressive volumes since it found multiple lithium anomalies at its 111,100oz ‘Karonie’ gold project in April.

The 1,200sqkm Karonie is 8km along strike and within contiguous tenure to Global Lithium Resources’ (ASX:GL1) ‘Manna’ lithium deposit (9.9Mt at 1.14% Li201), but has never been explored for lithium.

ALY also has a couple of free-carried JVs (it doesn’t have to pay anything toward exploration) with TSX-listed Superior Gold and copper major Sandfire Resources.

There’s near term cashflow potential from the 114,000oz ‘Hermes’ JV with Superior Gold (ALY 20%), where ALY is free carried to production. Its share of the costs will be repaid from profits, it says.

And if that wasn’t enough, ALY also has an advanced HPA and cobalt-nickel project in the portfolio. A strategic review of the project is underway.

The $21m market cap stock is up 170% year-to-date. It had $2.5m in the bank at the end of March.

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