Pic: Via Getty
Mining
Here are the biggest small cap resources winners in early trade, Tuesday October 4.
Explorer SXG pulled up the highest gold grades to date in drilling at the Sunday Creek project in Victoria.
Importantly, these hits – like 21.5m at 15g/t gold eq (including 2.1m at 121g/t) – are at Rising Sun, a new area 350m away from the known Apollo shoot.
The mineralisation at Rising Sun, which was mined to 45m depth in the late 1800s, has now been tested to 260m vertically below surface.
It remains open at depth, SXG says.
Drilling with two rigs continues at three locations at Sunday Creek ahead of maiden resource: Apollo, Rising Sun, and Golden Dyke (700m west of Apollo).
Four holes have been drilled and are being processed and analysed, with two holes in progress.
“The Sunday Creek system is developing on multiple fronts, as we continue to intersect extremely high grades of gold at the upper levels of the system (140m vertically below surface) including 0.4m @ 380.6g/t AuEq,” managing director Michael Hudson says.
“This bodes well for the potential development of better grades continuing to develop at depth, as we have seen in similar and adjacent epizonal systems in Victoria, that are mined at some of the highest grades globally.
“These results continue to demonstrate that Sunday Creek is a significant exploration discovery in the renaissance of the Victorian goldfields.”
The tightly held, $45m market cap stock is up 102% year to date.
The lithium (not gold) explorer netted a big fish, naming David Southam as incoming managing director.
Southam was the driving force behind Mincor Resources (ASX:MCR), which went from $70 million explorer to $1 billion nickel miner during his tenure.
Prior to joining Mincor, Southam was executive director of ASX-200 nickel company Western Areas for eight years and held senior executive roles within Brambles Group, Gindalbie Metals, ANZ Investment Bank and WMC Resources.
He will initially join the CY5 board as a non-executive director from 1 November 2022, before moving into the MD role from mid-February 2023.
CY5 chairman Ray Shorrocks says Southam’s decision to join the company speaks volumes about the potential of the flagship Pontax project, where previous drilling already established the presence of high-grade spodumene.
Pontax is a recently acquired, 70% owned project in James Bay lithium district in Canada.
“I’m very excited to be joining the Cygnus team at such an early juncture of its lithium journey and look forward to leading the company through its next stages of growth,” Southam says.
“Excitingly, the company will commence its maiden drill programme in the coming weeks with a clear aim of delivering an inaugural Mineral Resource in 2023.”
$45m market cap CY5 is up 70% year-to-date.
EFE is hitting thick pegmatites (lithium bearing rock) in 30 of 32 drillholes at the Trigg Hill project in the Pilbara region of WA.
Highlights include:
642 drill samples have been sent to Perth for analysis, the company says.
Trigg Hill, located around an old tin-tantalum mine, is a stone’s throw from Pilbara Minerals’ (ASX:PLS) Pilgangoora mine.
This former iron ore junior went all-in on lithium after cementing a deal with Chinese battery materials giant Yahua to find and develop Aussie projects late last year.
Yahua Group is one of China’s major lithium chemicals producers.
With a customer base that includes Tesla, BYD Auto, Zhenhua E-Chem and Sinopec, the company is in the process of expanding to 93,000tpa of lithium hydroxide and 1,000tpa of lithium metal by 2025.
To help achieve this it has inked binding deals with miner Orocobre (ASX:ORE), near term producer Core Lithium (ASX:CXO), and now early stage explorer EFE.
The $35m market cap stock is down 24% year-to-date.
(Up on no news)
This gold project developer recently dipped its toe into rare earths exploration, where it is having some early success.
Initial drilling at the Trayning tenement in WA returned shallow clay-hosted mineralisation including a highlight 52m at 1,096 parts per million (ppm) total rare earth oxides (TREO) from 12m.
Notably, about 20% of the TREO consists of high-value magnet rare earths – particularly neodymium and praseodymium – that are used for electric vehicle motors and wind turbines.
“These initial AC results are very positive considering the broad spacing used,” managing director George Sakalidis said.
“The thicknesses are substantial, and the grades compare favourably with existing REE ASX companies, including 52m at 1096ppm TREO from 12m in MTRAC011. Most of these intersections are open to the North and South.
“Further drilling is being planned with numerous assays awaited.”
MAU has also applied for two nearby REE exploration licences.
(Up on no news)
Has NES hit the big one? This junior gold explorer has been bouncing around on decent volumes for a few weeks.
NES is looking for the next tier one 7.7Moz ‘Tropicana-like’ gold deposit at the Woodline and Tempest projects in the Fraser Range of WA.
Woodline was previously owned by a Newmont JV which spent $16m delineating several early-stage targets. This exploration stopped back in 2012 when the gold price began to free-fall.
A 10,800m aircore program kicked off at Woodline early August, closely followed by a 3,000m program at Tempest.
No news has been forthcoming to explain the SP movement, and in response to an ASX query mid-September a bunch of drilling assays were at least four weeks away from being released. Which is soon.
They have some though, tucked away.
“The first assay batch results were received by the company’s exploration manager [ex-Tropicana JV manager for regional exploration Derek Shaw] on 8 September 2022 whilst he was still in the field,” NES writes September 13.
“At this time there have been no other assays received and the results of the initial batch have not, as yet, been reviewed or interpreted.
“In respect of confidentiality, the company treats the security and confidentiality of all assays with the utmost importance.
“The assay security is maintained by the exploration manager. Following the initial compilation and interpretation they are then provided to the board.
“In relation to arrangements the company has in respect to confidential information, the company’s Corporate Governance policy for Directors and Management expressly prohibits the release of price sensitive information and this is strictly enforced.”
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