Resources Top 5: It's all garnet on in the Kimberley and Athena doubles on trade

Pure Resources jumps over 50% on high-grade garnet and copper
Norfolk rises on imminent decision about Las Alteres uranium project
Athena doubles with board changes and a scoping study of Byro magnetite project

Pure Resources (ASX:PR1)

A fun one to sink your teeth into today is PR1’s announcement that it’s acquiring a garnet project called Reedy Creek in the WA Kimberley region.

The landholding is dominated by andradite garnet and the explorer is looking to assess its potential near-term development.

Garnet is probably what your nan wore in the 60s, handed down to her in jewellery from her parents or a marvellous up-and-coming Australian cricketer.

Though in all seriousness, the vast majority of garnet is used as an abrasive blasting material, for water filtration, in a process called water jet cutting, and to make abrasive powders.

PR1 is going to conduct studies on the abundant outcropping hazard-rock garnet at Reedy Creek to monetise the mining of the material, scarce enough that Pure thinks a focus on supplying high-margin end products will pay dividends.

Historical results from Reedy Creek include:

6m at 78% garnet from surface in hole GHR010
10m at 65% garnet from 2m in hole GHR015; and
8m at 49% garnet from surface in hole GHR001

The company’s also going to assess the economic viability of industrial calcium carbonate from the project and is awaiting metallurgical test results that will determine the basket of end products the project will be able to produce.

In tandem, PR1 is progressing towards a drill program at its Killarney copper project in WA’s Kimberley region.

Recon sampling of up to 19.3% Cu in rock chips spurred PR1 to get to the chopper and do some EM surveying across the landholding and have helped lay out high-priority targets for a maiden drill campaign.

Shares in the junior rose 50% this morning but were back down to a 16.3% gain at 1.30pm AEST.

Star Minerals (ASX:SMS)

(Up on yesterday’s news)

An update to the scoping study released in its quarterly yesterday has pegged SMS’ Tumblegum South gold project near Meekatharra, WA, to produce a shotgun single mining campaign producing 11,000oz to 15,900oz of gold.

It’s also upped its gold price point from $3000/oz to $3800/oz, reflecting buoyant spot prices and a longer-term positive outlook for bullion.

The study has flagged that gold recovered will culminate in an undiscounted surplus of $19.6m, excluding pre-mining capital requirements.

It also recently completed a share placement for $264,000 at 3c per share and is about to embark on some ground-truthing of a previous RC drill program to test for resource extensions.

SMS shares have jumped 17.2% to trade at 3.4c on market.

Norfolk Metals (ASX:NFL)

(Up on no news)

The latest from NFL back in June is that it has extended an exclusivity deal for the acquisition of the Las Alteres uranium project in Argentina.

Las Alteres is surrounded by uranium deposits such as the 19.1Mlb Meseta Central and the 11.49Mlb Cerro Solo.

It’s got 105 days to decide on further moves, which started on April 14. Now with a bit of maths from this wordsmith, (April has 30 days… May then June.. carry the one.. July 25 means…) it’s been 102 days so far and needs to get a wriggle on regarding Las Alteres.

The company raised $415,746 in a share placement on April 18 and whatever the company is planning, investors may have cottoned on about the deal, since shares in the junior are up 13.6% at time of writing to trade at 12.5c per share today.

Athena Resources (ASX:AHN)

(Up on some news)

Iron ore junior AHN is up 100% on trade today after a boardroom shuffle – and investors seem to dig the moves.

John Welborn has been appointed non-exec chair and Garry Plowright non-exec director with immediate effect, while Ed Edwards and Hau Wan Wai have resigned as directors of the company.

If those names seem familiar to you, it’s because AHN now has Fenix Resources (ASX:FEX) as a potential +30% major shareholder if it chooses to convert some notes. That company is led by Welborn, the former Wallabies, Waratahs and Western Force second rower who rose to prominence in the mining game at the helm of African goldie Resolute Mining.

Fenix has been making a castle for itself in the junior iron ore sector around Geraldton, piling up stranded deposits in a scale play assisted by the high grades at its small but profitable Iron Ridge mine.

Eagle-eyed observers may note Athena has just moved into the same offices as Fenix over in Spring Street in Perth in a ‘non-sensitive’ announcement today.

The explorer recently completed a scoping study for its Byro 2.4Mtpa magnetite processing operation of the FE1 magnetite deposit north-east of Geraldton, WA. Fenix’s involvement certainly heightens the prospect of a development solution here, though magnetite is, historically, highly capital intensive.

The economics show a 29.3Mt resource at 24.7% Fe and a production target of 16.96Mt at 26.1% Fer across an eight year mine life with significant extension possibilities with additional resources.

It aims to produce and process 5Mt of magnetite concentrate at 70% Fe suitable for the green steel market.

Shares in the $4m market-capped minnow have doubled from 0.2c to 0.4c today on trade.

WA Kaolin (ASX:WAK)

(Up on yesterday’s news)

A share purchase plan to raise $500,000 opened yesterday for WAK to progress developing engineered ceramics from its Kwinana R&D facility and improve its kaolin into a finer product for export.

Sales jumped last quarter from $595,103 up to $772,000 from the previous quarter production from its Wickepin project which contains 64Mt of extremely high-grade and easy access kaolinite.

Its developed K99 dr process pilot plant has a 20,000tpa capacity and is bearing fruit with sales continually rising each quarter.

Shares in the junior are up 11.4% to trade at 4.9c at time of writing.

At Stockhead we tell it like it is. While Norfolk Metals 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.