- Kula Gold, Fin Resources define potential lithium targets at their respective early stage projects
- WIA Gold working toward next resource upgrade at 1.3Moz Kokoseb deposit with new hits like 15m at 17.13g/t
- Black Rock inks binding graphite offtake, US$10m prepayment facility with steel conglomerate POSCO
Here are the biggest small cap resources winners in early trade, Monday May 29.
KULA GOLD (ASX:KGD)
KGD reckons there’s evidence of “bladed spodumene crystals at surface” over a large area at the recently acquired Kirup project, ~20km from the world’s largest hard rock lithium mine Greenbushes in WA.
Early-stage mapping/soil sampling has uncovered some drill targets to test for lithium below the weathered zone, which is estimated at 15-20m deep.
Exploration drill planning is in progress, it says.
Meanwhile, assays are pending from a small four-hole for 360m drill program at the 1.7km-long DBGM gold-lithium prospect, also a proverbial stone’s throw (~45km) from Greenbushes.
The $10m capped minnow is down 40% year-to-date. It had $1.4m in the bank at the end of March.
WIA GOLD (ASX:WIA)
WIA is getting thick and high grade extensional drill hits, just weeks after unveiling a monster 1.3Moz maiden resource for the Kokoseb gold deposit in Namibia.
The company is already working toward its next resource upgrade with new intercepts like 15m at 17.13g/t from 292m.
“Kokoseb, once again, is revealing its outstanding potential. Following the recent announcement of the initial mineral resource estimate of 1.3Moz at 1.0g/t Au, the latest RC drilling results have returned very high-grade, thick mineralised intercepts beneath the existing US$1,800/oz resource pit shells,” WIA exec Andrew Pardey says.
“Hole KRC086 confirms that high-grade mineralisation extends to almost 200m below the existing resource.
“It is also noteworthy in that it has an unconstrained intercept of 68m at 5.72g/t Au, which includes a series of 1m samples at over 10g/t Au, from which one is over 90g/t Au and two are in the order of 50g/t Au.
“Such a coherent zone of very high-grade mineralisation at depth opens a new and exciting chapter for the overall scale and grade potential of Kokoseb.”
The maiden resource was delivered just 11 months from the discovery drillhole, at a discovery cost of just US$2/oz.
WIA says this is one of the lowest resource discovery costs by industry standards.
The $21.5m capped stock is down 20% year-to-date. It had $3.5m in the bank at the end of March.
FIN RESOURCES (ASX:FIN)
Multiple lithium and REE targets have been identified at FIN’s early-stage Ross project in James Bay, Quebec.
Ross, which neighbours the Whabouchi lithium deposit (36.6Mt at 1.3% Li20), will be explored with detailed field mapping, outcrop sampling and geochemical sampling during Q3.
Last week FIN uncovered possible outcropping pegmatites at the Cancet West lithium project, also in James Bay.
FIN was previously focused on a ‘zero carbon’ multi-commodity operation at the 905sqkm Sol Mar project in northern WA but pivoted to lithium earlier this year.
The $8m capped stock is down 10% year-to-date. It had $2.3m in the bank at the end of March.
BLACK ROCK MINING (ASX:BKT)
The advanced graphite play has inked binding offtake and a US$10m prepayment facility with shareholder and US$20bn steel conglomerate POSCO.
POSCO is also one of the world’s biggest battery anode material producers and a key participant in the battery supply chain.
It will buy 100% of planned graphite fines production – between 20-30,000tpa — from Module 1 of the Mahenge project in Tanzania.
The US$10m prepayment, to be repaid with product, will be used as part of construction financing, BKT says, which is due for completion in the current quarter.
The binding agreements with POSCO provide critical customer validation that we have a commercial and high value graphite product that will be sold as a qualified product into consumer markets under a long term contracted offtake,” BKT boss John de Vries says.
“Mahenge is the only large-scale ex China graphite project to achieve this outcome.”
BKT says Mahenge hosts the second largest graphite ore reserve, and the fourth largest JORC-compliant graphite mineral resource globally.
Phase 1 of the project would cost US$182m to build.
The $130m capped stock is flat year-to-date. It had $7.6m in the bank at the end of March.
RENEGADE EXPLORATION (ASX:RNX)
(Up on no news)
A recently completed 1600m drilling campaign hit copper sulphide zones up to 20m thick at the Mongoose project near Cloncurry, QLD.
Highlights from two holes include 20m of visible chalcopyrite mineralisation from 113m and 14m of visible chalcopyrite mineralisation from 171m.
The mineral chalcopyrite is major source of copper metal. But these visuals aren’t a substitute for actual assays, which are due in 6-8 weeks.
Mongoose was part of the 23%-owned Carpentaria Joint Venture (CJV) with mining major Glencore. This year RNX inked a deal to excise Mongoose from the JV, making it sole operator and funder.
The $13.5m capped stock is down 55% on its mid-April peak but remains up 30% year-to-date.
It had just $581,000 in the bank at the end of March.