Resources Top 5: Investors going nuts for copper hits and lithium stocks

Golden Deeps hits ~53.5m grading 3.6% copper equivalent from surface
Pursuit Minerals up almost 100% since Friday morn
Near-term lithium miner Sayona now +3050% since Jan 2021

Here are the biggest resources winners in early trade, Monday April 4.

GOLDEN DEEPS (ASX:GED)

Punters are frothing over big copper hits right now.

Leading the winners Monday morn was GED, which pulled up an impressive ~53.5m grading 3.6% copper equivalent from surface (1.15% copper, 0.62% vanadium, 3.49% lead, 4.57g/t silver) at the historical ‘Nosib’ prospect in Namibia.

This includes a high grade 11.74m at 8.5% copper eq from 2m (this was a vertical drillhole, so not true width).

The shallow, high-grade, copper-vanadium-lead-silver mineralised zone at Nosib has now been tested over a 100m strike length and continues from surface to ~50m vertical depth.

It remains ‘open’ (i.e. – GED has not found the edges yet) to the northeast and southwest at surface.

This latest drilling paves the way for a maiden resource and open pit planning studies, GED says.

“The high-grade zone, from surface, has an ideal geometry for open-pit mining and the project will now be fast-tracked with a maiden resource estimate, open-pit optimisation, and metallurgical testing to be carried out prior to initial development and processing studies,” CEO Jon Dugdale says.

“The concept here is to combine the outcomes of the test work on Nosib with the Abenab high-grade vanadium project studies to produce an integrated mining and processing plan for near-term production of high-value vanadium, copper, lead and zinc products to feed the ever-increasing demand for these metals for renewable energy battery industries.”

The nearby ‘Abenab’ vanadium project in Namibia was the highest-grade deposit of vanadate ore in the world from 1921 to 1947.

This ore type is different – and better, Golden Deeps says — to all other primary vanadium projects.

It is simpler to beneficiate and concentrates to a very high level for further processing either on-site or by other offtakers.

$20m market cap GED is up 80% year-to-date. It had $2.2m in the bank at the end of December.

Golden Deeps share price chart:

PURSUIT MINERALS (ASX:PUR)

(Up on no news)

The former vanadium stock is up almost 100% since Friday morn, when it announced that three newly uncovered gold and copper targets at the ‘Calingri East’ tenement would be drilled later this month.

Not that exciting to be honest, so there might be something else going on here.

PUR is currently offloading its Scandinavian vanadium assets for up to ~$3.2m in shares to Kendrick Resources Plc, which is about to list on the London Stock Exchange.

That gives PUR considerable exposure to any share price upside Kendrick may have.

$33m market cap PUR is now up 27% year-to-date. It had ~$7.4m in the bank at the end of December.

Pursuit Minerals share price chart:

SAYONA MINING (ASX:SYA)

This near-term lithium miner has gained ~150% over the past month, giving it an outrageous market cap of around $2.2bn.

SYA owns advanced exploration assets in Canada’s Quebec province, where it announced a doubling of the Authier and North American Lithium projects’ combined resource to 119.1 Mt at 1.05% Li2O at the start of March.

Today, SYA told investors that lithium from its ‘Authier’ project in Québec performed as well, if not better than the incumbents in battery test work.

“Sayona has committed to downstream processing in Québec, including lithium carbonate or hydroxide,” the company says.

“These results by an industry‐leading battery tester have further increased confidence in our strategy, which will deliver added value for all stakeholders and support North America’s decarbonisation drive.”

SYA recently joined a wave of lithium entrants like Lake Resources (ASX:LKE), AVZ Minerals (ASX:AVZ) and Core Lithium (ASX:CXO) in the ASX 300 index.

Entry into major indices like the ASX 300 and ASX 200 can spur price rises and sharp volume increases for new entrants.

Sayona Mining share price chart:

CARNABY RESOURCES (ASX:CNB)

More copper hits, this time from already red-hot stock CNB.

The explorer has returned 24m at 5% copper and 1.3g/t gold (including 12m at 8.1% copper and 2.2g/t gold) at ‘Nil Desperandum’, ~70m down plunge from discovery hole NLDDD044.

In December last year hole NLDD044 returned a 41m long intercept at 4.1% copper — which included a 9m chunk grading 10.3% — at this “major Iron Oxide Copper Gold discovery which is rapidly getting bigger and better at depth”.

The stock has since gained ~470%.

The new results announced today also include a decent hit at the adjacent ‘Lady Fanny’ prospect.

“We are in the early stages of unearthing the scale and significance of the Nil Desperandum and Lady Fanny discoveries,” CNB managing director Rob Watkins says.

“The drill results and visuals coming in from the ongoing drilling continue to point towards a major new resource and development project at the Greater Duchess Copper Gold Project.”

Carnaby Resources share price chart:

METALS AUSTRALIA (ASX:MLS)

(Up on no news)

This battery metals junior is having a solid run in 2022.

On 21 March it said initial RC drilling of the recently discovered ‘Foundation’ pegmatite at the ‘Manindi’ project in WA had intersected thick pegmatite with “visible lithium bearing minerals”.

The hits are under recent rock chip sample results averaging 1.29% Li2O, 0.51% Rb over the entire 500m pegmatite strike length.

Assays are pending.

MLS will follow up with more detailed diamond drilling after this 3,500m drilling program is complete and results received.

The company recently raised $7.8m to explore Mandini, as well as the ‘Lac Rainy’ graphite project in Canada.

It is also looking to “build on its portfolio of battery minerals projects in the highly ranked exploration/mining jurisdictions of WA and Quebec, Canada”.