Resources Top 5: IOCG hunters, nickel discoveries, and a copper-gold stock fires on debut

Cohiba preps deep hole at advanced ‘Horse Well’ IOCG target
Copper-gold explorer Askari leaps out of the gate on ASX debut
Auroch dials in on new nickel sulphide target at Nepean

Here are the biggest small cap resources winners in early trade, Wednesday July 7.

COHIBA MINERALS (ASX:CHK)

In the same neighbourhood as Coda Minerals (ASX:COD) and Torrens Mining’s (ASX:TRN) potentially big discovery at ‘Elizabeth Creek’, Cohiba’s South Australian tenement package “is to be explored aggressively”, the company said late April.

While a recent drilling program at the ‘Horse Well’ project missed paydirt, it confirmed the company was drilling in the right area for a big IOCG discovery.

The explorer is now planning an additional deep hole at Horse Well, as well as drilling at ‘Pernatty C’.

While IOCG mineralisation is a target in the region, Cohiba will primarily focus on the shallower, Zambian Copperbelt (ZCB) style mineralisation at Pernatty C.

METALSTECH (ASX:MTC)

The gold mine developer has completed the sale of a lithium royalty over its assets in Quebec, Canada for $6.65m.

MetalsTech now has $6.8m cash in the bank and is funded for planned exploration and development at its flagship 1.5-million-ounce ‘Sturec’ mine.

A shareholder notice of meeting for the spinout of the lithium assets into new IPO Winsome Resources is expected to be finalised in the coming weeks.

The stock is up 23% year-to-date.

BMG RESOURCES (ASX:BMG)

(Up on no news)

A major follow-up drill program is being planned at the ‘Abercromby’ gold project in WA, where BMG recently hit thick, high grades like 26m at 6.07g/t gold from 192m in a maiden program.

Impressive, but not as impressive as historic intersections like 57.5m at 5.73g/t gold from 80m.

The emerging gold camp remains open in multiple directions, the company says.

Despite this, ~$15m market cap BMG is down 40% year to date.

ASKARI METALS (ASX:AS2)

The explorer has leapt out of the gate on its ASX debut.

The $5.75m raised in Askari’s IPO at 20c per share will be used to explore and develop a portfolio of copper and gold projects in WA and the Lachlan Fold of NSW.

The initial focus of a 2000m drilling program is the ‘Burracoppin’ gold project in WA, where old drilling pulled up hits like 18m at 5.64g/t gold from surface.

An electromagnetic (EM) survey has identified a strongly conductive ‘body’ – typical of well-developed massive to semi massive sulphide mineralisation — 1.8km south of the historic Nepean nickel mine.

EM surveys map sub-surface changes in electrical conductivity and are useful tools for finding nickel sulphides.

This high-priority drill target – estimated at 60-100m vertical depth with a strike length of 120m — “will be tested immediately” with three drill-holes ranging between 150-250m depth, Auroch says.

The $53m market cap stock is up 27% in 2021.