Resources Top 5: This $30m capped iron ore junior has a $14m-and-growing cash pile to deploy on acquisitions

Iron ore juniors Magnum Mining and GWR Group surge on high-grade test results, maiden royalties
Metal Bank actively pursing new copper assets in the Middle East, North Africa
Korab Resources and Kingsland Minerals up on no news

Here are the biggest small cap resources winners in early trade, Friday March 10.

MAGNUM MINING AND EXPLORATION (ASX:MGU)

Test work has confirmed a super high grade +68% iron product from MGU’s Buena Vista Green Pig Iron project in Nevada, USA.

Minimal changes will need to be made to the previously designed plant to produce these grades, which fetch a far higher price than the benchmark 62% product.

MGU is currently updating a 2011 study on the 232Mt at 26% DTR magnetite project, with a new scoping study designed to revise historic CAPEX and OPEX estimates as a prelude to embarking on a more advanced Prefeasibility Study.

Buena Vista was discovered in the late 1890s and between the late 1950s/ early 1960s around 900,000t tonnes of direct shipping magnetite ore at ~58% Fe was mined.

It was acquired by ASX-listed Richmond Mining (now esports stock SportsHero (ASX:SHO)) in 2009, culminating in a very detailed definitive feasibility study in 2013.

The project was then put in mothballs thanks to a significant decline in iron ore prices to less than US$50/t.

MGU purchased Buena Vista for up to ~$7m in cash and shares late 2020.

The $15m capped stock is up 20% year-to-date. It had $5m in the bank at the end of December.

GWR GROUP (ASX:GWR)

The savvy iron ore play is raking in cash after receiving the first two monthly payments (inclusive of royalties) totalling $1,512,000 from the C4 deposit.

GWR sold the mining rights at its C4 iron ore deposit – 1 of 13 high grade deposits at the 131Mt @ 60% fe Wiluna West project – to private company Gold Valley Iron Ore mid 2022.

It previously traded the rights to mine the high grade JWD deposit to fellow ASX-listed junior CuFe (ASX:CUF).

GWR will receive ~$756,000 per month from GV for a minimum $52m over the next decade, it says.

Meanwhile, external parties have expressed positive interest to either purchase a portion of the 11 remaining iron ore deposits or to acquire the mining rights, GWR says.

It now has a growing cash pile of $14m, which it will use to investigate and fund potential new acquisitions. The company is currently reviewing several opportunities, it says.

The $30m capped stock was punished last year, down 50%, but has staged a nascent comeback in 2023.

METAL BANK (ASX:MBK)

(Up on no news)

MBK has advanced projects in WA and also North Queensland, a region that hosts several mammoth mines including Cracow (3moz), Mt Rawdon (2moz), Mt Morgan (8moz) and Gympie (5moz).

It has 51% (with the right to earn up to 80%) of Millennium, an advanced copper-cobalt-gold asset in Queensland with an existing 5.9Mt @ 1.08% CuEq across five granted mining leases.

There’s considerable potential to expand this, it says, with recent drilling pulling up high grade cobalt hits like 12m @ 0.62% Cu, 0.14% Co and 0.34g/t Au from 51m.

These grades “highlight Millennium as one of Australia’s highest grade undeveloped battery metals projects”, says MBK, which also believes mineralisation keeps going at depth.

Meanwhile, exec chair Inés Scotland has been in meetings over in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region in pursuit of copper assets in the Arabian/Nubian Shield.

Perhaps there is an acquisition on the horizon?

The $8m capped stock had $1.5m in the bank at the end of December, with an additional $2m loan provided by Scotland and fellow board member Sue-Ann Higgins late February.

KORAB RESOURCES (ASX:KOR)

(Up on no news)

In September last year Magnesium play KOR began a review of rare earths and lithium prospectivity at its Batchelor tenure in the Northern Territory.

“Majority of the Batchelor project is underlain by the Burrell Creek Formation (part of the Finnis River Group) which hosts lithium mineralisation within nearby tenements owned or operated by Core Lithium (ASX:CXO), Ragusa Minerals (ASX:RAS), and Lithium Plus Minerals (ASX: LPM),” it says.

The small cap is now reviewing historical exploration data (~70,000 samples of drill chips, rock chips, whole rocks, and soils), as well as various closed and open file reports, it says.

Initial results of this review will be released to the market this month, with further results following.

Meanwhile, a scoping study on the Winchester magnesium project continues, evaluating the economics “of an environmentally friendly production method to produce sustainable, zero-carbon, green magnesium metal together with several additional sellable bonus products”.

The $10m capped stock is down 20% year-to-date. It had $695,000 in the bank at the end of December.

KINGSLAND MINERALS (ASX:KNG)

(Up on no news)

Shares in this $4.86m minnow jumped on news in early February that historical exploration results had revealed a new graphite discovery.

Graphite assays over 20 km strike length indicated a true thickness of up to 100m while a metallurgical bulk sample, collected at surface, was submitted for sighter flotation test-work with an assayed head grade of 9.3% TGC.

“We are in the process of designing and obtaining approvals for a drilling program aimed at estimating a Mineral Resource later in 2023,” KNG managing director Richard Maddocks said.

“We are aiming at being well placed to take advantage of forecast increasing demand for graphite for Lithium-ion battery applications.”

NOW READ: Kingsland Minerals shares jump on graphite discovery up to 20km in length

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