Resources Top 5: Potash slice not Beyondie Reward this time

Reward Minerals jumps on $2.13m Beyondie SOP plant purchase
Askari shares surge as it identifies golden opportunities on trend scoped out by De Grey Mining
BPM shares keep clawing up the charts

Here are the biggest small cap resources winners in morning trade, Wednesday, October 2. Prices accurate at time of writing.

Reward Minerals (ASX:RWD)

Reward has finally cut a slice into Kalium Lakes’ (ASX:KLL) failed Beyondie project, purchasing the project’s sulphate of potash (SOP) plant for $2.13m, so it can take it apart and build a new facility for its Carnarvon potash project.

After announcing the deal on Monday the company surged on the release of an investor presentation this morning.

RWD had previously announced intentions to purchase the Beyondie project from collapsed miner Kalium Lakes in November last year, yet in a failed attempt to raise $22.7m for the transaction those plans fell through.

Now, it’s ended up with Beyondie’s SOP plant instead for a tenth of the cost, planning to reconstitute the infrastructure from the remote inland development close to the WA coast.

That compares to the astonishing $466m of sunk investment that went into the project on its opening in 2021, before operational failures across the board and substantial cost blowouts forced its closure not even a year later and Kalium Lakes went down along with close to $80m of taxpayer funding.

The project seems beyond(ie) everyone who touches it (ho ho ho), as even before Reward made a bid to buy, rival Agrimin (ASX:AMN) had tried its luck through a share sale agreement with the receivers of Kalium Lakes.

It pulled out of the deal a month later, even though it was going to mothball the project and make its own assessment.

RWD’s latest study suggested its Carnarvon project would operate at ‘lowest quartile’ SOP production costs of $273/t (outside of a 10% contingency), though it’s worth pointing out that studies are just that.

Shares in RWD have skyrocketed on the purchase, up 36.6% in trade today to swap leaflets for 5.6c.

Askari Metals (ASX:AS2)

A strategic review of AS2’s Mt Maguire gold project in WA’s Pilbara has identified extensive gold mineralisation over a prospective 8km strike length of untested shear zones. It’s located along the same trend as Kalamazoo Resources’ (ASX:KZR) 1.44Moz Ashburton project, currently under option by $3.3bn gold developer De Grey Mining (ASX:DEG).

Historical results include high-grade intercepts of 2m at 12.14g/t gold from 35m as well as broader gold intercepts such as 31m at 0.84g/t from 20m, including 1m at 6.74g/t from 25m.

“The Mt Maguire project has surprised me with the numerous high-grade gold intercepts at near surface that have been largely untouched since the 1990s,” AS2 MD Gino D’Anna said.

“The Ashburton region of WA is a highly prospective and active mining district with demonstrated prospectivity for high grade gold and base metals
discoveries.

“With sporadic drill testing and an average drilling depth of only ~40 metres, the Mt Maguire project is essentially unexplored at depth and along strike.”

Upon completion of the technical review, AS2 intends to begin field work to test the targets.

Shares in AS2 went berserk on the findings, rising 40% to trade at 3.1c.

BPM Minerals (ASX:BPM)

BPM is continuing its run up the charts as it raises $1.675m to drive exploration efforts at its Claw project where it will focus on follow up exploration of its 30m thick Louie gold discovery that grades at 1.84g/t.

The explorer’s hunting ground is just south of Capricorn Metals (ASX:CMM) 3.24Moz Mt Gibson gold project, which is on track to become one of WA’s next big gold mines.

It’s also waiting on whitecoats (lab jockeys) to assay 40 AC drill holes it completed across 2129m, while gearing up for a a planned 2500m RC drill campaign that’s pegged to kick off towards the end of the year.

Shares in the gold junior have been on a tear ever since it first intersected high-grade gold from its Phase 2 drill program in mid-September, with shares rising from 5c then to now trade at 12.5c after today’s 19% price hike.

Culpeo Minerals (ASX:CPO)

Digging for red metal in one of the world’s richest copper regions – Chile’s Coquimbo – surface trenching at CPO’s El Quillay South prospect at its Fortuna project have turned up thick intersections of copper including a best sample of 46m at 0.9% CuEq.

There’s a bunch of world-class copper mines in the country – the largest producer in the world. Coquimbo alone, located around 400km north of the capital Santiago, boasts major mines such as the 350,000tpa Los Pelambres, owned by Antofagasta – about the same output as BHP’s (ASX:BHP) entire South Australian copper division.

The El Quillay structure has now been mapped over a strike length of >3km, with historic sampling returning copper mineralisation with widths of up to 43.1m at 1% copper and 1.31g/t gold.

“The strong correlation of these trench results with mineralisation previously exploited along the 3km El Quillay structure demonstrates the significant strike extent of this well mineralised system,” CPO MD Max Tuesley says.

“Trenching at El Quillay is ongoing, to rapidly define drill targets and extend mineralisation which is open to the south.”

Drilling is going to kick off at the Vista Montana prospect, along with a litho-geochemistry survey at the La Florida prospect and reconnaissance exploration of high-priority areas within the Fortuna project.

Shares in the junior rose 16.7% in early trade and are swapping for 3.5c.

Trigg Minerals (ASX:TMG)

TMG has triggered targets for drilling across the historical Taylors Arm antimony (Sb) project – which is known for the highest grades of the stuff ever discovered in Australia (63% Sb) and is in the vicinity of Larvotto Resources’ (ASX:LRV) well-known Hillgrove antimony deposit.

The company has gained a lot of interest over its recent antimony acquisitions across the Taylors Arm portfolio and the nearby Spartan project in NSW.

That’s because antimony is in high demand after becoming another victim of China’s export restriction roulette and forcing the rest of the globe to shore up supply chains of the stuff elsewhere.

Usually produced as a by-product, prices of the material used in high tech applications are now pushing past the US$25,000/t mark, allowing miners to now consider antimony as a primary source of income from a projects.

That’s exactly what TMG is looking at doing with its acquisitions and has just generated additional targets to 71 historically producing ultra-high grade antimony workings and mines.

The explorer is now going over all the data with a fine-toothed comb to generate high-priority targets.

The antimony hunter’s shares are rising once again and are up 225% over the past month. That included 8.3% today to trade for almost 4c before a sharp reversal sent the explorer to breakeven.

At Stockhead we tell it like it is. While Culpeo Minerals and Trigg Minerals are Stockhead advertisers, they did not sponsor this article.
This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.