Resources Top 5: Norwest hits copper paydirt just as sentiment begins to take off

Norwest hits broad intervals of copper at the Bali Copper Project
Titanium Sands and Infinity Mining surge on no news
Golden Deeps Abenab resource produces “exceptionally” high concentrate grades

Here are the biggest small cap resources winners in morning trade, Thursday January 12.

NORWEST MINERALS (ASX:NWM)

NWM has bolted out of the gate this morning after maiden drilling hit a highlight 52m at 1.4% copper from surface, including 12m at 4.4% copper from 4m, at the Bali project in WA.

The ~$9.99m market cap company says the 3,900m drilling program hit broad intervals of mineralisation across four prospects.

“This is the first drilling undertaken at Bali since 1989 and we are very encouraged by the results,” NWM CEO Charles Schaus says.

“All prospects returned one or more wide drill intersections of copper mineralisation and we have also identified additional shear zones across the Deep South area with highgrade copper rock chips.”

Drill planning is now underway focusing on potential lateral and depth extension of these seven high-grade copper vein structures.

It comes amidst increased copper sentiment, with prices climbing to US$8912/t on Wednesday after China reopened its borders.

TITANIUM SANDS (ASX:TSL)

(Up on no news)

TSL has a flagship mineral sands project called ‘Mannar’ in Sri Lanka.

Last year the company started the last part of an ‘infill’ drilling program that is required to increase the 93Mt at 5.24% THM high grade zone resource from ‘Inferred’ to the higher confidence ‘Indicated’ category.

This is required by the ASX so TSL can release a revised Scoping Study, the first proper look at the economics of building a mine.

The company had $869,000 at the end of the September 2022 quarter and is up 30% year to date.

GOLDEN DEEPS (ASX:GED)

Gravity test-work on a bulk sample of the Abenab vanadium-zinc-lead resource in Namibia has produced “exceptionally” high-grade vanadium-zinc-lead (descloizite) concentrate grades.

The results produced from test represent a major breakthrough with the company, returning 15.6% vanadium, 11.2% zinc, 38.2% lead and 0.8% copper.

GED says the high-grade concentrate sample represents an 18 times upgrade of the representative drill core composite sample and is above the targeted upgrade factor of 15 times, matching the historical Abenab vanadium concentrate production grades which were the highest in the world.

“This opens the door to replicating the process for the Nosib discovery and then completing downstream hydro-metallurgical test-work to produce high-value battery metals products for the rapidly growing renewable energy battery storage industries globally,” GED CEO Jon Dugdale says.

CODA MINERALS (ASX:COD)

Coda is a favourite of Garimpeiro on the strength of its Emmie Bluff copper cobalt project in South Australia being moved to the scoping study stage and its ongoing hunt for a large-scale IOCG-type discovery at depth.

This morning the company says it has kicked off an Ambient Noise Tomography (ANT) survey, with placement of the initial geodes now well advanced.

“The deployment of Fleet Space Technologies’ ‘ExoSphere’ ANT survey represents a pivotal new phase of exploration,” COD says.

“This is aimed at unlocking the broader potential of the Emmie Bluff Project and following up on the discovery of the Emmie IOCG copper-gold deposit in June 2021.”

The survey is designed to provide a highly detailed sub-surface velocity map to assist in identifying structures that may host extensions of and/or thicker mineralised portions of the Emmie IOCG deposit.

The ANT survey will give Coda the ability to cover a much greater area at significantly lower cost than drilling, allowing it to refine and update the next stage of its exploration work programs.

INFINITY MINING (ASX:IMI)

(Up on no news)

A total of 35 rock chip samples were collected at the Brisbane nickel prospect, within the wider Panorama Project (E45/4779) in the Pilbara region of WA back at the end of 2022.

Rock chip assays returned up to 7,636ppm (0.764%) nickel and 8,918ppm (0.892%) chromium, consistent with previous open-file geochemical results.

The ~$27.4m market cap company was also granted a five-year extension for exploration licence E45/4732, part of the Panorama Project.