Resources Top 5: The copper and gold plays out to impress

Canterbury inks JV over ‘Briggs’ copper project with African Energy Resources
Newly listed Torque hit thick, shallow and high grade gold
Aguia (copper, fertiliser), Orion (shell) and Strickland (copper, gold) up on no news

Here are the biggest small cap resources winners in early trade, Wednesday August 18.

CANTERBURY RESOURCES (ASX:CBY)

Hoping to benefit is African Energy Resources (ASX:AFR), which is paying decent coin to earn into CBY’s ‘Briggs’ copper project in QLD.

African Energy will have the right to earn up to a 70% joint venture interest in Briggs through staged exploration spending over nine years of up to $15.25 million.

AFR will also subscribe for 8,333,333 Canterbury shares at 12c each — a ~18% premium to the 15-day VWAP — raising $1 million.

Canterbury has been actively exploring in the area since 2017 when it acquired the Briggs and Mannersley tenements from major miner Rio Tinto.

Exploration has to date focussed on the Central Porphyry zone within the Briggs tenement. This includes a significant diamond drilling campaign during 2019 which outlined a large-scale, low-grade copper resource estimated as 142.8Mt at 0.29%.

Exploration activity proposed during the initial Option phase includes a ~3,000m drilling program, scheduled to commence in September.

AFR gained 8% in early trade.

CBY, AFR share price charts

AGUIA RESOURCES (ASX:AGR)

(Up on no news)

In March, an early-stage project study and updated resource shows “positive economics” for development of Aguia’s Andrade copper deposit in Brazil.

Results show an impressive 67.1 per cent internal rate of return (IRR) on a 1mtpa copper sulphate (salt) operation over 14 years.

Average earnings before tax would be almost $20m a year – and it would cost just $10m to build the thing.

“Just like our Três Estradas phosphate project, Andrade also has very robust project economics and is another example of Aguia’s ability to secure projects that have low CAPEX requirements, compelling NPVs, and excellent IRRs,” managing director Dr Fernando Tallarico says.

“Our strategy is all about building solid underlying cash flows from multiple projects in the one region, all of which are underpinned by large, multi-generational resources, and Andrade is another such project.”

ORION METALS (ASX:ORM)

(Up on no news)

Orion is a shell company with no assets to speak of after selling its ‘Top Camp’ copper-gold project for $500,000 in July.

It sold its Tanami West rare earths minerals project in north-eastern WA last year for $250,000.

“The sale of Top Camp will enable the Directors to concentrate on investigating the acquisition of alternative assets to create long-term value for the benefit of all shareholders,” the company said.

STRICKLAND METALS (ASX:STK)

(Up on no news)

This month the WA gold explorer kicked off drilling at the Dusk til Dawn (7,000m RC) and Horse North (10,000m aircore) prospects.

“We’re very excited to begin this initial drilling in the coming fortnight. The company was always of the view that Dusk til Dawn represented some ‘low hanging fruit’ for initial exploration programs,” chief executive officer Andrew Bray said.

He added that if the upcoming drilling can demonstrate a link between a recently discovered gravity feature and the gold mineralisation, the company could have something really special on its hands.

TORQUE METALS (ASX:TOR)

Newly listed Torque has two gold projects, Paris and Bullfinch, both in richly gold-endowed WA mining centres.

The 143sqkm Paris project lies within the Boulder-Lefroy Fault Zone, a prolific structure host to numerous large mines, including the mammoth 450,000oz per year ‘Super Pit’ in Kalgoorlie.

Initial drilling results released today from the ‘Observation’ prospect at Paris are pretty speccy. Highlights include:

9m @ 11.52g/t gold from 63m
6m @ 5.58g/t gold from 42m, and
9m @ 3.98 g/t gold from 21m.

Thick, shallow and high grade – three things punters should always look for in gold drilling results.

“Importantly, the results show a “gold corridor” exists spanning at least 2.5km and encompassing the mineralisation at Paris Pit, HHH Pit and now Observation,” Torque exec chair Ian Finch says.

“Our focus now will be to undertake further drilling at Observation with a view to understanding the potential scale of the mineralised area at Observation, and to further extend the Paris Gold Corridor to the North of Observation.

“In addition, there are further assay results anticipated, which we will announce in the coming weeks as they come to hand.”