Resources Top 5: Heavy Minerals does the lifting and 170 pegmatites sighted at Spargoville

Heavy Minerals has $2.1m to develop its garnet mine near Geraldton
Kali finds 170 pegmatite intervals in historical data at Spargoville
Asian Battery Metals discovers new Copper Ridge prospect at Yambat

Here are the biggest small cap resources winners in morning trade, Thursday, August 8. Prices accurate at time of writing.

Heavy Minerals (ASX:HVY)

HVY is one of today’s biggest market winners after completing Tranche 1 of non-dilutive royalty funding, raising a total of $2.1m.

It’s executed a royalty agreement with Campbell Transport and raised $1.25m, adding to the previously raised $850,000 from investors so it can keep plugging away at its flagship Port Gregory garnet project near Geraldton, WA.

The royalty funding and cap raise clears the path for HVY to complete a PFS and kick off a bankable feasibility study for defined 166Mt @ 4% total heavy minerals containing 5.9Mt of garnet.

Garnet sand is a good abrasive and a common replacement for silica sand in sand blasting, waterjets to cut steel and in water filtration.

Demand is forecast to outstrip supply in the coming years with a widening deficit already happening this year and into the future unless additional supply comes online.

“The non-dilutive nature of the royalty adds significant value to the company and shareholders and aids in our objective of developing WA’s next world-class industrial garnet mine at Port Gregory,” HVY chair Adam Schofield says.

Shares have skyrocketed 39% to 13.5c per share on the ASX at time of writing.

Kali Metals (ASX:KM1)

Early doors findings from KM1’s review of historic drill core databases have revealed multiple spodumene occurrences at its Spargoville project in the Higginsville lithium district in WA, where Mineral Resources’ (ASX:MIN) 26.5Mt Bald Hill and 71.3Mt Mt Marion lithium operations are producing.

The Higginsville lithium district. Source: KM1

KM1 has pinpointed 170 pegmatite intervals that occur in 41 diamond drill holes and 37 RC holes, mainly west of Spargo’s Reward and says it will hit the ground to investigate the prospectivity further.

To date, the core review program, which is only 51% complete, has concentrated on the area around Westgold Resources’ (ASX:WGX) recently acquired Spargo’s Reward open-pit gold mine.

It’s also shouted out some results of an RC drill campaign out of its Widgiemooltha lithium project north of Liontown Resources’ (ASX:LTR) 15Mt Buldania development, with hits of up to 1.44% Li2O from first-pass RC drilling.

Exploration work is continuing during Q3 to delineate targets for drilling and shares in the junior are up 23.3% to trade at 18.5c at time of writing.

Alara Resources (ASX:AUQ)

(Up on recent news)

AUQ has received more kit from Italy to process tailings at 137tph through its Wash-hi Majaza copper processing plant in Oman as a permanent solution to a tailings management issue.

The company says it will complement a couple of new filter press units recently ordered from China and the two units, which have a combined concentrate processing capacity of 75-80tph, are intended to increase plant production to 85% of its rated capacity by the end of February 2025.

The producer has also made its second shipment of copper and gold concentrate in 50 containers to commodity house Trafigura and expects to ramp up sales after sourcing solutions to its processing issues.

Shares in the Middle Eastern miner are starting to rebound after a big dip from 7.5c per share in April and are up 12% to trade at 4.4c.

Titanium Sands (ASX:TSL)

(Up on no news)

Minerals sands-focused explorer TSL has been trying to get its Mannar Island project in Sri Lanka off the ground for a while now and has been progressing environmental and exploration license renewals with some good headway.

In June, it got approved for five core licenses at the $1.2bn 318Mt at 4.17% total heavy minerals project where it’s looking to kick off State 1 development of the resource.

Heavy minerals can provide quite lucrative mining opportunities, as Senior Journalist Bevis Yeo laid down in an update on the sector last week.

Discussions with the Sri Lankan government are progressing and TSL has secured local support for the project.

Perhaps there’s some news in the wind as TSL shares have shot up 66.7% today to 0.5c per share.

Asian Battery Metals (ASX: AZ9)

Four new copper and nickel targets have been sounded out at AZ9’s Yambat project in Mongolia as the explorer has completed just over half of its 2500m drill campaign at the Oval prospect within the tenure.

Meanwhile, while conducting regional exploration to the north of Oval, at a prospect now named Copper Ridge, gold mineralisation is showing up and has spurred the junior to get boots on the ground to investigate further.

“The 2024 regional reconnaissance program has resulted in a major advancement of the geological knowledge in what we consider to be one of the emerging copper and nickel exploration districts in Mongolia,” KM1 MD Gan-Ochir Zunduisuren says.

Ongoing exploration includes outcrop mapping, a geophysical survey program and field reconnaissance to identify prospective structures across the project area.

Shares in $7m market-capped explorer AZ9 rose 15% to trade at 2.3c.

At Stockhead we tell it like it is. While Titanium Sands is a Stockhead advertiser, it did not sponsor this article.

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.