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Mining
Here are the biggest small cap resources winners in early trade, Wednesday February 2.
2021 punter favourite RNU has been conditionally approved for a $185m government loan to build its Siviour graphite project in South Australia.
The loan — to be provided under the Commonwealth of Australia’s $2 billion Critical Minerals Facility – should cover a huge of chunk of stage 1 start-up capital requirements of ~$200m.
A Final Investment Decision (FID) on the project is planned for later this year, RNU says.
Siviour could be among the world’s lowest cost producers of an important graphite product for EVs called purified spherical graphite (PSG).
Market data suggests an average operating cost of ~US$2,000/t for the existing PSG market, which is 100% based in China.
RNU’s gross operating cost of US$1,989/t PSG “is favourable by comparison”, it says.
Pricing agency Fastmarkets says PSG prices were up 40% over the 12 months to November 2021 to between US$3,100 and US$3,300 per tonne. Nice margin.
Fellow graphite stock Ecograf (ASX:EGR) and rare earths company Hastings Technology Metals (ASX:HAS) also made gains after being approved for big government loans today.
$530m market cap RNU is up 56% year-to-date, and 830% over the past 12 months. It had $15.4m in the bank at the end of December.
In April last year, Chinese-owned BCK and major miner Mineral Resources (ASX:MIN) formed a JV to bring a 25 million tonnes a year Pilbara iron ore hub into production.
$11.1bn market cap MIN will fund ~$105m worth of initial development works at the ‘Marillana’ and ‘Ophthalmia’ project mine sites, as well as on the transport corridor and port area.
The development timeframe was estimated at about three-and-a-half years.
It is part of MIN’s plan to turn from a 20Mtpa miner to a 90Mtpa major in 3-5 years through a series of developments and acquisitions.
Today, MIN announced that the Government of WA had granted a port capacity allocation to MRL and Hancock Prospecting for a new iron ore export facility at the Port of Port Hedland.
MIN is aiming to ship at least 20 million tonnes of iron ore per annum from this facility.
“Under the joint venture agreement between Brockman and MRL over the Marillana and Ophthalmia Projects MRL is to provide a logistics system to transport the ore from the mine to the ship for export from Port of Port Hedland,” BCK says.
“Brockman is delighted with this progress which clears the path to unlock the significant value contained within the high-quality ores at Marillana & Ophthalmia.”
In October, SHH identified lithium potential at the ‘Dundas’ project which is interpreted to be along strike from Liontown’s (ASX:LTR) 14.8Mt ‘Anna’ resource, about 25km away.
The WA project was historically targeted for gold, which meant drilling was not assayed for lithium.
Technical studies have now confirmed the presence of both gold and numerous coarse-grained pegmatite (lithium host rock) intersections from past exploration work.
This has significant implications for additional discoveries within the tenements, SHH exec director Sanjay Loyalka says.
“Shree considers the Dundas tenements to be ideally located within a major regional structural corridor containing world class deposits of gold and lithium,” he says.
“Prospective mafic and ultramafic rocks and untested gold and base metal and silver drilling intersections and geochemical soil anomalies lay adjacent to major regional structures.
“Their location in an underexplored region leads Shree to rate the exploration potential of the project as very high.”
Drilling is planned, initially around and along strike of historical drillholes with recorded pegmatite intervals, following completion of statutory surveys.
SHH made an application for more ground at Dundas in August 2021.
The $16m market cap stock is up 40% year to date. It had $3.1m in the bank at the end of December.
(Up on no news)
The recently listed Neometals (ASX:NMT) spin off wants to be a ‘production ready’ nickel stock by end of 2023.
Its main game is the ‘Mt Edwards’ project in WA, where 162,600t of nickel across 11 separate resources has already been identified.
Mt Edwards also has lithium potential.
Over 10,400m of RC drilling for 69 holes has been completed since November 11, with first results due in the current quarter.
34 pre-collared holes established through this initial drilling program are now being lengthened by diamond drilling designed to intersect nickel mineralisation.
“This is where the excitement begins,” managing director Steve Norregaard said Jan 20.
“We’ve been eagerly anticipating the commencement of the diamond drilling, which marks a major step in enabling us to expand our mineral nickel resource at Mt Edwards and add significant value upside potential for our shareholders.
“We are looking forward to continuing the strong momentum we’ve generated at the early stages of our maiden drilling campaign.”
WIN – which raised $24m when it listed on the ASX last year — is up 60% year to date and 100% on its IPO price of 20c per share.
The explorer has pulled up an incredible 9m intersection at 110.5g/t gold from 42m – including 3m at 307.3g/t from 45m – at the newly discovered ‘Mosaic Lode’, part of the 659,000oz (and growing) Cue project in WA.
That’s thick, shallow, and high grade – three key things punters should be looking for in gold drilling results.
The new hits are ‘down dip’ from the original discovery intersection of 15m @ 111.6g/t from 25m.
There are also more decent results from resource infill drilling at the nearby ‘Big Sky’ prospect, including 3m @ 22.6g/t from 68m.
Assay results are pending for ~130 drill holes, MGV says.
“Our Cue gold project continues to deliver with more exceptional near-surface gold results in both RC and diamond drilling,” MGV boss Rob Waugh says.
“We think there is a lot more gold to be found in this district.
“Even modest tonnages at these sort of near surface grades could have a positive impact on the future project economics.”
MGV currently has three drill rigs spinning on its 100% tenure and one on the Evolution JV.
The immediate focus is on building the resource base and delivering a resource update in late Q2 2022.
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