• 5000m drilling is due to kick off any day now at Peako’s ‘Eastman’ PGE project
  • Pacific Nickel Mines wants to be a miner by the end of the year
  • Gold-lithium focused ALY launches strategic review of advanced ‘West Lynn’ HPA and cobalt-nickel project

Here are the biggest small cap resources winners in early trade, Thursday, May 5.
 

MOHO RESOURCES (ASX:MOH)

(Up on no news)

Earlier this week the Terry Streeter-backed gold and nickel explorer said it had identified geological and geophysical features “synonymous with nickel-copper-PGE mineralisation” at the very early stage ‘Manjimup’ project in WA’s South West.

Initial exploration will be focused on “low ground disturbance” stuff like soil sampling and various surveys, it says.

Meanwhile, MOH’s main focus seems to be the ‘Silver Swan’ nickel and gold project, about 40km from Kalgoorlie.

Last quarter, a re-evaluation of historical down hole electromagnetic survey data identified a possible, weak off-hole conductor at the ‘Black Swan South’ nickel prospect.

“If the conductor reflects possible massive nickel sulphide mineralisation, it may sit within an untested portion of the Black Swan South magnetic anomaly, or it might reflect graphite or a sliver of sulphide bound in the interpreted NW shear,” MOH says.

Drilling of this target is being planned. Drilling results from the ‘Omrah’ and Wise’ nickel targets are also pending.

The $6m market cap stock is down 20% year-to-date. With about $450,000 in the bank the company says it is “considering its options for raising funds through an equity issue and expects to be successful based on previous capital raises”.

 

PEAKO (ASX:PKO)

(Up on no news)

5000m of first pass drilling is due to kick off any day now at the ‘Eastman’ intrusive complex in the Kimberley region of WA, where PKO is hunting for a major PGE discovery.

The Eastman Intrusion comprises a 16.5km long PGE-rich mineralised layered mafic-ultramafic intrusive complex “with only limited historical drilling”, PKO says.

It is a proverbial stone’s throw from Future Metals (ASX:FME) 2.4Moz ‘Panton’ PGE project, where a resource upgrade is expected sometime in Q2.

Recent drilling by Pantoro (ASX:PNR) at the nearby  ‘Lambo’ Intrusion has also defined wide PGE intercepts, with resource drilling currently in progress.

A minor component of PKO’s planned drilling program will expand the current footprint of gold-copper-lead-silver mineralisation at the ‘Landrigan’ prospect, which is currently 300m long.

The $6m market cap stock is up 10% year-to-date. It had $2.15m in the bank at the end of March.

 

PACIFIC NICKEL MINES (ASX:PNM)

(Up on no news)

This small cap wants to be a nickel miner by the end of the year.

PNM has two nickel laterite direct shipping ore (DSO) projects in the Solomon Islands, ‘Kolosori’ and ‘Jejevo’.

The company has already completed early works at the ~5.9Mt Kolosori project in preparation for the main construction program targeted for April/May — which is subject to the completion of the Definitive Feasibility Study, regulatory approvals, and financing.

The Definitive Feasibility Study is scheduled to be completed early this quarter.

Discussions are continuing with several prospective off-takers and project financiers, “with several indicative finance proposals received”, PNM said late April.

A scoping study released last year envisaged a production target of 6.23m tonnes at 1.5% Ni for 93,450t of contained nickel.

The project would cost just US$20m to build, with first production targeted in late 2022.

Nickel laterite ores from DSO operations – a low-cost way to get into production — provide feedstock for nickel pig iron production suitable for Chinese stainless-steel producers, PNM says.

Few alternative sources of nickel laterite ore globally exist outside Indonesia (higher jurisdictional risk) and the Philippines (lower grade) to satisfy demand from the domestic Chinese producers.

The $27.5m market cap stock is up 11% over the year-to-date. It had $2.2m in the bank at the end of March.

 

STELAR METALS (ASX:SLB)

(Up on no news)

The recent listing has five copper-zinc projects in South Australia, proximal to major mines and discoveries held by BHP, Oz Minerals, FMG, and Coda Minerals.

Its main game is ‘Evelyn Dam’; a large, very deep and untested Olympic Dam-style IOCG gravity target which was previously owned by both Rio Tinto and BHP.

Iron oxide copper gold ore deposits (IOCG) — like BHP’s Olympic Dam mine or more recent Oak Dam discovery  — can be tremendously large, and simple-to-process concentrations of copper, gold and other economic minerals.

A single hole drilled by Rio in 2018 (EVE001) missed the main anomaly. SLB don’t intend to make the same mistake, with drilling set to kick off this quarter.

SLB’s other copper projects include Torrens (about 40km from Olympic Dam), Barratta, and Gunson.

The company’s Linda zinc project in the Flinders Ranges is considered prospective for MVT and Beltana-Kipushi type zinc-lead mineralisation as well as Zambian style copper mineralisation.

Here, a series of geological mapping, surface sampling and geochemical surveys will commence shortly and continue over coming months in the lead-up to first drilling later this year.

The $8m market cap stock is up 10% on its IPO price of 20c per share. It has about $6.3m in the bank.

 

ALCHEMY RESOURCES (ASX:ALY)

(Up on no news)

The ALY share price has been bouncing all over the joint on some pretty impressive volumes since it found multiple lithium anomalies at its 111,100oz ‘Karonie’ gold project late last month.

The 1,200sqkm Karonie is 8km along strike and within contiguous tenure to Global Lithium Resources’ (ASX:GL1) ‘Manna’ lithium deposit (9.9Mt at 1.14% Li201), but has never been explored for lithium.

Drilling is currently underway at the ‘Gilmore’ and ‘Karonie East’ gold targets.

ALY also has a couple of free-carried JVs (it doesn’t have to pay anything toward exploration) with TSX-listed Superior Gold and copper major Sandfire Resources.

There’s near term cashflow potential from the 114,000oz ‘Hermes’ JV with Superior Gold (ALY 20%), where ALY is free carried to production. Its share of the costs will be repaid from profits, it says.

And if that wasn’t enough, ALY also has an advanced HPA and cobalt-nickel project in the portfolio.

‘West Lynn’ in NSW has an existing 21.3Mt nickel-cobalt and 7Mt alumina resource which “could be mined concurrently”, ALY says.

A strategic review of the project is underway.

The $21m market cap stock is up 170% year-to-date. It had $2.5m in the bank at the end of March.