• eMetals, MinRex continue to gain on recent rare earths, lithium acquisitions
  • Golden Deeps hits high grade copper in Namibia
  • Brockman (iron ore), PacGold (gold) up on no news

Here are the biggest small cap resources winners in early trade, Tuesday November 30.

 

EMETALS (ASX:EMT)

(Up on no news)

Earlier this month, the micro-cap explorer announced the acquisition of a 469sqkm project prospective for ionic clay (IAC) rare earths in the Eucla Basin of WA.

IAC deposits are typically found in southern China and are commonly considered to be some of the cheapest and most readily accessible sources of heavy rare earths, as well as making up a significant percentage of the world’s total output.

Good timing, with prices at decade highs.

The Salmon Gums acquisition is close to EMT’s existing ‘Cowlinya’ REE project. It is also a stone’s throw from recent IAC discoveries made by Mount Ridley Mines (ASX:MRD) (~35km away) and Salazar Gold (~20km away).

This acquisition is an educated punt by EMT. While the applications have no known REE mineralisation, they have only been explored previously for gold and, to a lesser extent, base metals and uranium.

It is not surprising that there has been no previous exploration for REE in this region as there is practically no outcrop, which lessens the chances of prospectors stumbling across mineralisation, the company says.

Additionally, this ‘China’ style of REE occurrences nearby require a specific soil sampling and drilling target program which has never been carried out on the Salmon Gums ground.

The $9.5m market cap stock had $426,000 in the bank at the end of September. It is currently looking to raise $4.375m at $0.0125 per share.

 

MINREX RESOURCES (ASX:MRR)

(Up on no news)

MRR is up ~58% since picking up a bunch of lithium projects in the Pilbara earlier this month.

This is all part of an strategy to become “an emergent lithium explorer with high-quality assets” within 70km of world-class lithium and tantalum producers Pilbara Minerals (ASX:PLS) and Mineral Resources (ASX:MRL), it says.

A further 97sqkm in exploration licence applications are currently subject to a ‘ballot’ (aka picking a name out of hat), including three tenements surrounding and adjoining Global Lithium’s (ASX:GLI) 10.1 million tonnes at the 1.1% Li ‘Archer’ project near Marble Bar.

Field mapping and surface soil/rock chip sampling will kick off to evaluate the lithium potential of the numerous pegmatites in all areas, MRR says.

The $20m market cap stock had ~$2m in the bank at the end of September.

 

GOLDEN DEEPS (ASX:GED)

Drilling confirms that GED has a shallow, high grade, open pittable copper-lead-silver-vanadium resource on its hands at the historic ‘Nosib’ mine in Namibia.

Shallow drilling hit a highlight 21.40m at 2% copper, 5.3% lead, 7.9g/t silver, 0.29% vanadium — or 3.9% copper equivalent– from surface.

This intersection is part of a thick mineralised zone that extends from surface to 45.8m deep (true thickness) at average grade of 1% copper, 2.5% lead, 4.6g/t silver, GED says.

More importantly, deeper drilling has intersected a 32m copper zone from 71m “which appears to be strengthening at depth”, with up to 6% copper in spot XRF readings on drill core. Assays are pending.

This thing could get a lot bigger, GED CEO Jon Dugdale says.

“We see potential here to not only define a shallow, open-pittable, resource of copper, lead and vanadium but also an opportunity to discover a high-grade copper-silver orebody at depth,” Dugdale says.

“Copper, lead and vanadium are key battery metals and Golden Deeps has the opportunity to become a key player in the supply of battery pre-cursors for the rapidly growing EV and renewables markets.”

The drilling rig will move across to the nearby ‘Khusib Springs’ target once this program is complete.

GED is looking for a repeat of the very-high-grade Khusib Springs shoot that produced ~300,000t at 10% copper and 584g/t silver to 300m depth from the 1990s, closing in 2003.

The $14m market cap stock is up 50% in the past month. It had $2.5m in the bank at the end of September.

 

BROCKMAN MINING (ASX:BCK)

(Up on no news)

The iron ore explorer is flying after Gina Rinehart’s Roy Hill and Hancock Prospecting announced plans to team up with Mineral Resources (ASX:MIN) in a bid to open up a new iron ore export facility in Port Hedland.

MIN has been waiting for approvals for the South West Creek berth, which would open up the development of its ‘Marillana’ and ‘Opthalmia’ iron ore JVs with BCK.

MIN will fund ~$105m worth of initial development works at Marillana and Ophthalmia project sites, as well as on the transport corridor and port area. The development timeframe was estimated at about three-and-a-half years.

BCK – which puts out about one, maybe two substantial releases per quarter — said the JV would carry out drilling programs and “update baseline environmental studies” during Q4.

 

PACGOLD (ASX:PGO)

(Up on no news)

On November 18 the explorer announced thick, high-grade gold in maiden drilling at the ‘Alice River’ project in North Queensland.

The highlight intercept was 26m at 3.6g/t gold from 104m, including 3m at 21g/t from 126m.

This was an exceptional outcome from the first holes into a new, large-scale target, PGO managing director Tony Schreck says.

“High-resolution IP geophysics data highlights the new target zone extending over 800m south from beneath the open pit and these initial two drill holes confirm our interpretation that the system significantly widens only 50m to 100m below surface and is open in all directions,” he says.

This new target represents just one of numerous new large-scale targets being tested in the current drill program.

The red-hot $18m market cap stock is up 123% on its IPO price of 25c per share.

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