• NYSE listed Chinese EV maker Nio will subscribe for $12m of shares in lithium minnow Greenwing
  • Dundas hits surprise massive sulphides in shallow water drilling
  • Lithium drilling is underway at Sipa’s Skeleton Rocks project

Here are the biggest small cap resources winners in early trade, Monday September 26.

 

GREENWING RESOURCES (ASX:GW1)

NYSE listed Chinese EV maker Nio will subscribe for $12m of shares in the lithium minnow, ahead of a potential JV and offtake deal.

Nio will hold about 12.16% of GW1 at completion of the placement, done at 55c per share – a big premium to the last closing price.

Thing is, GW1 doesn’t even have a lithium resource yet at its flagship San Jorge project in Argentina.

That’s what this cash will be used for, the company says — “to accelerate its exploration program”.

Maiden drilling is now planned to commence September/October 2022, GW1 says.

Nio also gets a call option to acquire up to 40% of the project within a year of a JORC resource being announced.

This could result in an exercise price of between $US40m-$US80m, GW1 says. A nice potential prize for the ~$30m capped junior.

Nio will also have first dibs on offtake.

The company formerly known as Bass Metals also has an advanced 62Mt graphite project called Graphmada in Madagascar.

The mothballed project was expected to fire up again in 2024-2025, producing 40,000t of graphite concentrates per year.

 

DUNDAS MINERALS (ASX:DUN)

Nickel, copper, cobalt, and gold explorer DUN hit shallow massive sulphides and ultramafic rocks in water drilling at the Central Target, in southern WA.

Surprise!

“The drill rig has already completed three shallow holes, for drilling water, to a maximum depth of 37m,” company says.

“Unexpectedly, massive sulphides were intersected in hole 22CEWB003 (from 17m) and pyrite rich altered stockwork veins, also from 17m, in hole 22CEWB001.”

pXRF readings also picked up anomalous (low grade) cobalt, nickel, copper and silver, the company says.

The main drill hole to test the 450m deep AMT anomaly has now commenced.

The Central Target was initially identified by DUN from an aerial electro-magnetic (EM) survey in late 2021.

Two of the strongest EM anomalies were then confirmed by two audiomagnetotellurics survey lines in March 2022, then drill targets were developed.

“What is most exciting about Central is that there are a series of EM anomalies that extend over a length exceeding 10km,” managing director Shane Volk says.

“As far as Dundas Minerals can determine, there has been no prior exploration ever conducted in this area of the Albany-Fraser Orogen, we are working in an absolute greenfield exploration environment.”

 

CORELLA RESOURCES (ASX:CR9)

(Up on no news)

The stock formerly known as Sinetech is exploring for kaolin and silica in WA.

A maiden resource estimate of 24.7Mt was announced early November 2021 at its flagship asset — the ‘Tampu’ kaolin project 250km northeast of Perth.

New drilling is now underway to upgrade the resource.

The high purity of the Tampu deposit highlights the potential of the resource to qualify as feedstock for the lucrative high purity alumina (HPA) market, CR9 says.

The HPA market includes various technology applications including lithium-ion batteries, LED lights and semiconductors which can attract prices between ~$40,000 – $70,000 per ton.

The company recently achieved 5N+ (99.99957%) HPA on a 25kg representative bulk composite sample produced from Tampu. That’s very pure.

“The outstanding metallurgical, brightness and HPA results confirm Tampu as Australia’s best and largest resource of high purity bright white kaolin that far exceeds the specifications required to qualify as commercial 5N and 4N HPA feedstock,” CR9 managing director Tony Cormack says.

“Tampu can easily achieve both 5N & 4N purity through a simplified process, which will be a cheaper and greener method than other existing flowsheets.

“We remain focussed on executing on our HPA focussed strategy; in the interim we will look to supply shorter term options to fast-track revenue and maximise Tampu’s production profile.”

 

SIPA RESOURCES (ASX:SRI)

After a small delay lithium drilling is underway at SRI’s Skeleton Rocks project, near Wesfarmers’ large Mt Holland development in WA.

The drill program will consist of ~10 holes to planned depths of 150m each, angled directly under geochemical anomalies encountered in a March 2022 aircore drill program.

Halos of lithium have a limited dispersion around the margins of known deposits, SRI says, providing focussed drill targets.

“The focused geochemical halos we have identified at Skeleton Rocks are the logical place to commence drilling on a project that is well located in a proven WA lithium province,” managing director Pip Darvall says.

“The program can be adapted as we progress based on results, and it is great to once again be out testing targets at another one of Sipa’s projects.”

 

CAULDRON ENERGY (ASX:CXU)

(Up on no news)

When the WA state government implemented a ban on most new uranium mines in 2017, CXU stopped work at its flagship ‘Yanrey’ uranium project and began searching for other dirt to play with.

It now has a historic gold project called ‘Blackwood’ in Victoria and a silica sands play called ‘Ashburton’ in WA.

It is also poking around Yanrey again, which is a lot more interesting now that uranium prices and sentiment are on the move.

“The Bennett Well deposit contains greater than 30 million lb of uranium oxide and remains one of the largest undeveloped uranium deposits in Australia,” CXU said in its June quarterly.

“No on ground exploration was undertaken during the quarter due to the Western Australian State Government’s ban on uranium mining and development activities since June 2017.

“Ways to continue to progress and demonstrate the potential of the project continue to be investigated.”