John Lund, Stone/ Via Getty Images
Resources Top 5: These ASX battery metals stocks are bucking the bearish trend
Mining
share
- 10,000m drilling set to kick off at Lithium Plus Minerals’ Bynroe lithium project
- Chase Mining to acquire advanced McIntosh graphite project
- PolarX (copper, gold, silver), and Variscan (zinc) up on no news
Here are the biggest small cap resources winners in early trade, Wednesday, June 15.
LITHIUM PLUS MINERALS (ASX:LPM)
10,000m of drilling is ready to unlock rock at LPM’s flagship ‘Bynroe’ lithium project, which shares a border with Core Lithium’s (ASX:CXO) ‘Finniss’ mine development.
The focus will be the ‘Lei’ and ‘Cai’ prospects where there is “strong potential to delineate a maiden high-grade resource”, the company says.
The drilling program, set to start early July, will take about four months to complete.
LPI listed in April following a $10m IPO, with the share price rocketing 292% on debut.
It peaked at $0.98 per share from its listing price of $0.25, before trailing down to 44c currently.
CHASE MINING (ASX:CML) and HEXAGON ENERGY MATERIALS (ASX:HXG)
Shell co CML has inked a conditional deal to buy a major stake in the advanced, high-quality McIntosh graphite project in WA — “the third largest ASX listed graphite project in Australia”.
It will acquire private company Green Critical Minerals (GCM), which can trigger the right to acquire up to 80% of the graphite rights at McIntosh from HXG by spending up to $3m on exploration.
CML will also change its name to Green Critical Minerals.
HXG – now focused on hydrogen — is free carried until a decision to mine, which must be made within 2 years of earning 80%.
“The McIntosh project has more than 40,000 metres of graphite focussed drilling conducted on the property and extensive metallurgical test work providing a unique opportunity to advance a critical mineral project to development at a pivotal time where sovereign supply of graphite located in a Tier 1 mining jurisdiction is limited,” CML directors Leon Pretorius and Julian Atkinson say.
“The Mcintosh flake contains a globally significant flake size endowment highly amenable to low cost, HF free (hydrofluoric acid) downstream processing.
“The company is excited to map the path towards advancing this project by revising and updating historical feasibility studies and scoping studies conducted on the concentrate processing and downstream processing respectively whilst drilling key targets which have upside to further expand on this project.”
$11m market cap CML is up 80% year-to-date.
POLARX (ASX:PXX)
(Up on no news)
PXX is an explorer focused on ‘Caribou Dome’ and Stellar’ — part of the wider ‘Alaska Range’ project in Alaska – and the ‘Humboldt Range’ gold-silver project in Nevada.
The Stellar property has a current resource of 3.4Mt @ 1.2% Cu + 2g/t Au + 14g/t Ag JORC at ‘Zackly’, which is open in all directions.
Caribou Dome includes a 2.8Mt @ 3.1% Cu JORC, which is also open in all directions.
PXX recently raised $1.4m finalise initial technical studies at Alaska Range, plus drill some holes into Humboldt Range.
At Alaska Range, an initial scoping study is evaluating combined mining and processing of Caribou Dome and Zackly “to help determine minimum resource size required for a viable project”.
The study is anticipated to be completed in the current quarter.
The $13m market cap struggler is down a massive 60% year-to-date, and 80% over the past 5 years.
VARISCAN MINES (ASX:VAR)
(Up on no news)
VAR owns two zinc projects in Spain – its flagship ‘Novales-Udias’, where the historical San Jose Mine resides, and ‘Guarjaraz’.
Both projects are former producing assets.
2,000m of drilling kicked off at ‘Buenahora’ in Novales-Udias last week, targeting zinc-rich mineralisation near historic workings and new discoveries in untested areas.
“This campaign directly supports a key stated objective of Variscan’s exploration plan, which is to define a regionally significant mineral resource similar in size and grade to the former producing and proximal Reocín Mine,” VAR boss Stewart Dickson says.
The historical Reocín is one of the largest known zinc-lead deposits in Europe.
“There has been no significant exploration drilling at Buenahora for at least the last three decades,” Dickson says.
“The zinc market has changed significantly in that time, making this area and the Novales-Udias project overall, a very attractive development project today.”
Underground drilling at also San Jose is ongoing, VAR says.
The $8m market cap stock has bounced back for recent lows in early trade today but is still down 37% year-to-date.
It had $3m in the bank at the end of March.
