- Dateline hits thick, shallow, and high-grade gold in drilling at ‘Colosseum’ project in the US
- Up on no news today: junior gold stocks Vango, Ardiden, Gibb River and Felix Gold
Here are the biggest small cap resources winners in early trade, Thursday May 12.
DATELINE RESOURCES (ASX: DTR)
The explorer hit thick, shallow, and high-grade gold in data validation drilling at the ‘Colosseum’ project in the US, including 10.67m at 13.71g/t from 18.29m.
This drilling was mostly designed to confirm (or validate) historical 1990’s drilling data – which it did – so these results aren’t entirely unexpected.
However, DTR says that some holes were also drilled beneath the historic resource, CM22-04 and CM22-05 below.
These are the exciting ones:
“Whilst holes 1-3 were largely drilled to confirm the geology of the modelled deposit, we are most excited by the results from holes 4 and 5, which were planned to assess beneath the mineralised model,” DTR managing director Stephen Baghdadi says.
“Multiple intersections were returned from CM22-04, with the high-grade zone of 10.67m @ 13.71g/t Au returned in an area that we didn’t expect strong mineralisation.
The deeper intersections highlight the potential for the deposit to continue at depth, Baghdadi says.
“The intersection of 19.81m @ 5.19g/t Au in CM22-05 indicates the broad nature of mineralisation extends beneath the previously defined mineralisation model,” he says.
“We will now progress with the estimation of the Mineral Resource at Colosseum and plan the next drilling campaign to assess the significant potential that exists in the pipe-like structure at depth.”
The $51m market cap stock is up 44% year-to-date. It had $2.6m in the bank at the end of March.
VANGO MINING (ASX:VAN)
(Up on no news)
The advanced explorer’s share price, largely stifled by legal issues, bounced back in big way after scoring $10m via a new strategic investor in early April.
VAN’s main game is the high grade 1Moz ‘Marymia’ project in WA, where it is focused on growing the resource.
“This campaign is designed to deliver ‘critical mass’ to increase the mine life of a proposed future mining operation from Marymia’s resource base, specifically targeting an increase in total ounces to ensure that mill capacity of any future mining operation is maximised over the Project’s total mine life,” it said in April.
The explorer has targeted 11 new near surface resources amenable to open pit mining where, all up, 56 holes for 8,914m of drilling has been conducted.
A resource upgrade is pencilled in for the end of this quarter.
The $66m market cap stock is flat year-to-date.
GIBB RIVER DIAMONDS (ASX:GIB)
(Up on no news)
GIB’s share price has been quiet since spiking in October 2020 on a new gold discovery at the ‘Edjudina’ project, but the explorer is staying busy regardless.
New drilling results announced earlier this month at the ‘Neta’ prospect identified an entirely new style of mineralisation — a 55 degree plunging gold shoot 25m-30m wide, 30-60m in (true) thickness and from surface to at least 170m true vertical depth.
Highlight results included 25m at 1.27g/t, 6m at 4.15g/t and 12m at 2.4g/t.
The shoot, called ‘Carlsen’ remains open at depth, GIB says.
“There is a strong possibility the Edjudina project will host more of these Carlsen-style mineralised shoots,” the company says.
“The Company is currently planning the next drilling program to follow up these excellent results at Neta and to target Carlsen type ‘shoots’ in the broader Edjudina Field.”
GIB is currently selling its Ellendale diamond mine to Burgundy (ASX:BDM) for $6.7m in cash and 16 million shares.
The $13m market cap stock is down 23% year-to-date. It had $2.4m in the bank at the end of March.
ARDIDEN (ASX:ADV)
(Up on no news)
ARV has two pretty interesting assets on the go in Canada: the flagship ‘Pickle Lake’ gold project and a free carried (doesn’t pay anything) 20% interest in the ‘Ontario’ lithium project.
Both are fairly advanced, with ADV currently drilling at Pickle Lake to build on the existing 110,000oz resource.
There’s multimillion ounce potential here, it says.
ADV’s JV partner on the lithium project, Green Technology Metals (ASX:GT1), has rerated strongly since listing on the ASX following a $25m IPO late last year.
The project comes with a 4.8Mt @ 1.25% lithium resource at ‘Seymour’, which also contains a substantial exploration target of ~22 to 26Mt @ 0.8 to 1.5% lithium.
There are exploration targets at ‘Root’ and ‘Wisa’ of 20 to 24Mt @ 0.8 to 1.5% lithium and 8 to 10Mt @ 0.8 to 1.5% lithium, respectively.
GTI recently received firm commitments for a $55 million, two-tranche placement which includes a US$10m (A$14m) strategic investment by major North American player Lithium Americas Corporation (NYSE:LAC).
LAC has a market cap of around US$3.4 billion and is currently constructing the ‘Cauchari-Olaroz’ lithium brine project in Argentina as well as targeting development of its ‘Thacker Pass’ deposit in Nevada.
$40m market cap ADV is up 20% year-to-date.
It had $7.4m in the bank at the end of March, plus 13m shares in GT1 escrowed until November this year.
FELIX GOLD (ASX:FXG)
(Up on no news)
FXG is hunting gold deposits in the Fairbanks District in Alaska, home to multimillion ounce monsters like Kinross’s ‘Fort Knox’ and Freegold’s ‘Golden Summit’.
7,000m of drilling kicked off at the ‘Treasure Creek’ project late April focused on “multi-kilometre, high-grade (+100 ppb Au) gold soil geochemical anomalies with historical intercepts that remain untested at depth and open in multiple directions”.
All up, the hard-working explorer plans to drill between 10,000m and 15,000m across its Fairbanks tenure through 2022.
The $11m market cap stock is down 11% year-to-date. It had $10.6m in the bank at the end of March.