Resources Top 5: One, maybe two mineral discoveries set these ASX stocks alight

A new copper gold discovery in Queensland sends Hammer surging in morning trade
Sunstone spikes before going into a trading halt “pending the release of an exploration update”
Argosy ships 20 tonnes of high purity lithium carbonate to Korean customer

Here’s your top ASX small cap resources winners in morning trade Wednesday, January 20.

HAMMER METALS (ASX:HMX)

A new copper gold discovery in Queensland sent this minnow surging in morning trade.

Thick intercepts like 55m at 1.12 per cent copper and 0.3 g/t gold were pulled up in two wide-spaced holes at Trafalgar, part of the Mount Isa JOGMEC joint venture.

“Whilst the oxide [shallow] mineralisation at this prospect has been previously exploited by small-scale miners, there are no records or evidence of this [deeper] system ever having been drill tested,” says Hammer managing director Daniel Thomas.

“Significantly the association of copper and gold with magnetite and rare earth mineralisation is a feature of a number of prominent large scale IOCG deposits.”

Iron oxide copper gold ore deposits (IOCG), like Olympic Dam in South Australia, can be tremendously large and simple-to-process concentrations of copper, gold and other economic minerals.

Olympic Dam is the third largest copper equivalent deposit, the largest uranium deposit, and third largest gold deposit in the world.

These things are company makers.

And there’s a lot of more drilling to come — the broader Trafalgar trend is part of a very large soil anomaly which stretches for 2.7km.

SUNSTONE METALS (ASX:STM)

Has this Ecuadorian copper-gold-silver explorer hit paydirt as well?

Sunstone spiked hard before going into a trading halt “pending the release of an exploration update”.

Sounds very promising.

In December, drilling at Espiritu gold-silver target at Bramaderos hit 1.1m at 1069g/t silver, 0.2g/t gold, 5.5% zinc and 1.3% lead “in one of multiple lodes”.

Further drilling results are overdue.

“There is clearly immense potential at Espiritu, which has not seen any historical exploration, and in light of these results, we will accelerate our exploration program,” managing director Malcolm Norris said at the time.

“This is the first discovery of a silver-gold-zinc-lead system in the Bramaderos district and as such justifies some optimism that this may develop into a large system with further exploration.”

ENOVA MINING (ASX:ENV)

This tiny rare earth stock – which looks to have achieved very little over the last year — has been pumped four days straight on no news.

Enova is now up from 1.8c to about 6.3c currently for a total gain of 250 per cent.

It has no idea why, for the record.

ARGOSY MINERALS (ASX:AGY)

Argosy just shipped 20 tonnes of high purity 99.5 per cent lithium carbonate from its Rincon project in Argentina to a Korean customer.

While this production is from a pilot plant (a smaller version of the real thing), Argosy says it “further distinguishes Argosy from other junior lithium peers still at laboratory testing stage”.

“The ability to produce high purity battery quality lithium carbonate product from the industrial scale pilot plant gives the company great confidence and considerably reduces the associated risks for Argosy when progressing to the larger scale ~2,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) and ultimately ~10,000tpa operations,” the company says.

Payment terms were not disclosed, but Argosy says the sales price achieved “is higher than many of the larger lithium producers”.

“Argosy notes the recent marked increase in lithium carbonate prices (currently trading at a 16-month high) and the significant improvement in the general lithium sector thematic, with the company looking to leverage off the rising prices by fast-tracking the construction of the ~2,000tpa processing plant,” it says.

GALILEO MINING (ASX:GAL)

Mark Creasey-backed Galileo is ‘boots on the ground’ at its projects in the Fraser Range of WA as the nickel price tops $US18,000/t.

Electromagnetic (EM) surveys which started this week are designed to pinpoint ‘conductors’ that could be associated with nickel deposits, says Galileo managing director Brad Underwood.

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

“Additionally, drilling in February aims to test a well-developed conductive anomaly at the Lantern East Prospect as well as focussing on the existing sulphide mineralisation at the Lantern South Prospect,” he says.

“We are a nickel sulphide explorer with a strategy of making greenfields discoveries in known mineralised provinces at our Fraser Range and Norseman Projects.

“With the price of nickel exceeding US$18,000/t this is a great time to be exploring for nickel sulphide. A discovery in 2021 could be transformational for the company.”