Resources Top 5: Reach stretches up the ASX with fresh high-grade niobium hit

Niobium. Can’t keep it out of the ressie news lately. Reach is today’s high-grade news source, leading the sector’s gains
Ora Gold meanwhile is faring well on its recent news, if not the company’s latest half-yearly financials
Classic, Superior and Magnum are all moving in the right direction today, too

Here are some of the biggest resources winners in early trade, Wednesday June 12.

Reach Resources (ASX:RR1)

Emerging gold and rare earths explorer Reach is excited this morning. Its intraday share price action is pretty exciting, too, surging about 70% at the time of writing.

Reach believes it has found the primary source of high-grade niobium at Wabli Creek within the Gascoyne region of WA, with newly sampled rocks grading up to 17.65%.

The company notes that a recently identified ovoid late-stage intrusive feature at the project is considered the “likely parental source” of Nb-Y-Ta-Ti-REE enriched pegmatites.

Backing this up, geochemistry reportedly indicates that a carbonatite association “cannot be ruled out” in addition to the pegmatites.

Reach CEO Jeremy Bower describes it as a significant breakthrough for the company and the Wabli Creek project.

“It was not known whether the hard rock source material would hold the same or similar concentrations as the previously reported surface eluvium samples, however taking rock chips directly from the hard rock in-situ material and returning similar grades up to 17% Nb2O5, plus high grade REE and titanium is extremely promising,” said Bower.

Importantly, the new samples have been chipped straight off bedrock (in-situ) and hold similar concentrations to the previously reported high-grade weathered surface material samples – 32% Nb2O5 and 2.57% TREO.

Ora Gold (ASX:OAU)

Gold, copper and uranium hunter Ora Gold is double digits up today. And this comes despite incurring an after-tax operating loss for the half-year ended March 31 2024 – of $1,529,041.

This is up from its half-year accounts this time a year ago, which was a reported loss of $876,084.

Nevertheless, the company has had needle-moving news lately, with its binding agreement with the dominant gold miner in the Murchison region – Westgold Resources (ASX:WGX).

That’s an alliance that aims to advance the development of Ora’s Crown Prince deposit into production, and comes with a strategic placement capital raise of $6m.

An updated Mineral Resource Estimate at Crown Prince is due for completion in the September quarter.

Classic Minerals (ASX:CLZ)

Classic Minerals, an absolute minnow in the Aussie goldie scene with a market cap of just $1.59m, is having a good day on the back of some news regarding its Forrestania Gold Project (FGP), about 120km south of Southern Cross in WA.

Classic has revealed its made a significant gold resource upgrade at the project, after recently announcing the successful grant of mining lease M77/1310 over the project area.

This has reportedly upgraded the resource to Indicated, which the company regards as a pivotal milestone towards the further development of Forrestania.

Its combined Indicated Resource (from its Lady Ada and Lady Magdalene prospects) now total 69,966oz gold, with an Inferred resource figure of 227,613oz combined.

An independent assessement from Cadre Geology and Mining Pty confirms that the total FGP resource base is 297koz.

This adds to the resource at the company’s flagship gold project, Kat Gap.

Combined, FGP and Kat Gap have an Indicated and Inferred Resource of 8,091,920t at 1.45g/t for 377,946oz.

Superior Resources (ASX:SPQ)

(Up on no news)

Brisbane-based minerals explorer (copper, gold, tin, nickel) is also seeing its share price move in the right direction this morning, although it’s not immediately clear why it’s made a solid surge.

Reverting to its most recent news of note, however, and we can tell you that the company is feeling positive about the progress being made at its Steam Engine gold project.

And that’s a promising gold deposit located between several Tier 1-potential porphyry Cu-Au-Mo prospects and a magmatic sulphide Ni-Cu-PGE province within the Superior’s 100%-owned Greenvale project in northeast Queensland.

The company believes Steam Engine presents it with an opportunity to generate revenue in the short to medium term, along with “considerable upside potential” to grow the resource base to be a substantial deposit.

The company is currently revising a 2021 Scoping Study conducted on the project, with factors taken into consideration including resource expansion and exploration drilling programs to accelerate resource growth by step-out drilling along strike and down dip, as well as new gold lode targets to be drill-tested.

Superior’s MD Peter Hwang recently said:

“Whilst we have been executing drilling campaigns on our porphyry copper prospects, we have also been busy conducting important geological and resource studies at Steam Engine.

“We are putting Steam Engine to the test this year and we have high expectations, considering the incredible positive movements in the gold market and the upgraded Mineral Resource Estimate, both of which were not factored into the last Scoping Study that was completed in early 2021.”

Magnum Mining (ASX:MGU)

(Up on no news)

Up about 20% on decent volume, this iron ore and magnetite junior rounds out today’s gainers as we head to lunch.

Like Superior Resources, it also has no fresh news to speak of. Perhaps it’s still trading off encouraging metallurgical test work from last week.

Those results indicated a high grade 68.3% iron grade magnetite concentrate is readily achievable just through simple, low cost grinding at the company’s Buena Vista iron project in Nevada.

A crucial part of the testing, notes the company, is that the grinding has achieved the low silica and aluminium levels it was after – below 3%, which is a target needed to meet Direct Reduction Iron grade requirements.

It means that industry standard grade of iron “fines” are achievable with the coarse grind size. And that’s very much a win.

What next? Flotation test work is underway with the aim of achieving higher iron grades, and Magnum also says that a bulk magnetite concentrate will be produced for supply to key potential customers for their in-house testing.