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Mining
Here are the biggest small cap resources winners in early trade, Thursday April 28.
The lithium player released its March quarterly today and says despite COVID impacts it achieved production guidance of 81,431 dry metric tonnes (dmt) of spodumene concentrate, down slightly from December production of 83,476 dmt.
The average spodumene price reference for sales in the March Quarter was US$2,650/dmt – and in the latest Battery Materials Exchange (BMX) auction yesterday the company achieved a record price of US$5,650/dmt.
PLS said this equates to an estimated price of US$6,250/dmt (SC6.0, CIF China basis).
Notably, in its earnings call today, the company said the bidding on the BMX platform is primarily end-users which “clearly shows there’s an issue in the market that there’s not enough raw materials supply because the end users are bidding up the price, not the traders”.
And with the strong sales price dynamic during the quarter, PLS reckons the battery grade chemical pricing suggests another “significant step-up” in the offtake concentrate sales price during the June quarter.
The $7.91b market cap company had $284.9m cash at the end of the quarter.
(Up on no news)
The $14.25m market cap company released its March quarterly yesterday and flagged that the maiden mineral resource estimate for its Bryah Basin manganese JV released during the period was 1.84mt at 21% Mn.
At its Bryah Basin copper-gold project, the company nabbed $130,000 in co-funded EIS funding from the WA Government to undertake an RC drilling program at the Olympus prospect in early May.
Notably, mapping and rock chip geochemistry indicates Olympus is in a similar geological setting to Windalah and the nearby Horseshoe Lights copper-gold mine.
And at the Gabanintha copper-nickel project, scoping study work for a sulphide floatation project is underway.
The company had cash in bank at 31 March of $1.6 million.
(Up on no news)
This lithium player listed on Tuesday, and its share price soared up 178% from its listing price of $0.25.
The company is currently trading at $1 – that’s a whopping 300% increase.
The company nabbed a cornerstone investment from Suzhou CATH Energy Technologies, a subsidiary of CATL which is the world’s largest EV battery manufacturer.
LPM is focused on exploring its 19 granted exploration licences and three exploration licences under application in the Bynoe and Arunta regions in the Northern Territory.
Notably, its flagship Bynoe project is adjacent and along strike to Core Lithium’s (ASX:CXO) Finniss lithium mine which has a current mineral resource estimate of 14.7 Mt at 1.32% Li2O.
Several of the key Bynoe prospects are directly along strike from Core’s BP33 deposit, where recent core drilling returned high-grade spodumene rich intersections including 57.35m at 1.83% Li2O and 51.0m at 1.63% Li2O.
(Up on no news)
Earlier this week, the $2.47b market cap company has discovered a new southern lithium pegmatite zone near the main deposit at its Moblan project in Québec.
Recent drilling returned 5m at 1.85% Li2O from 3.5m and 35m at 1.62% Li2O from 27.6m in hole DDH135, plus 6.6m at 1.69% Li2O from 2.1m and 27.2m at 1.53% Li2O from 22.0m hole DDH136.
“Moblan is set to form the basis of a major northern hub for Sayona in Québec, complementing our established Abitibi lithium hub in the south and adding to our position as holding the leading lithium resource base in North America,” MD Brett Lynch said.
Follow up drilling is planned, with the company eying potential resource expansion at the project.
Lithium project developer AVZ also released its March quarterly, detailing the commitment of $25m to early works and the exploration drilling program at its Manono project, which MD Nigel Ferguson said further demonstrates the company’s confidence in bringing the project to development.
“Undertaking this early works program in the second half of FY22 will assist the company to maintain our development timetable for the Manono Project,” he said.
AVZ says the completion of the US$240m cornerstone investment with Suzhou CATH Energy Technologies (CATH) has now been extended to 30 April 2022.
CATH will shell out the cash for a 24% direct interest, plus another ~$160m to get the ~$US540m project into development.
The $3.74b market cap company had a cash balance of $70.57m at the end of the quarter.
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