Resources Top 5: Who struck a century today?

Variscan Mines soars on high grade zinc-lead hits at Novales
Emmerson up on NT gold hits at Tennant Creek
First manganese shipment nears for Element 25 after securing port access at Utah Point

Here are the biggest small cap resources winners in early trade, Monday May 25.

VARISCAN MINES (ASX: VAR)

On the same day market darling Rumble Resources (ASX: RTR) launched the start of a long-awaited drilling campaign, investors funded to the tune of $40 million another zinc-lead explorer who stole their thunder.

Variscan Mines struck a century in early trade, soaring more than 130% on stunning zinc and lead grades from their Novales project in Spain.

Once an operating underground mine, the discovery of the new La Caseta and 168-177 trends has got the market on notice.

At Caseta, Variscan has uncovered a new “laterally extensive, high-grade” lens below existing mineralisation of 16.9m at a mouth-watering 12.5% zinc and 2% lead, with another hit of 15.6m at 3.2% zinc and 0.3% lead.

Best results at 168-77 included 5m at 14.2% zinc and 4.3% lead, 5m at 11.4% zinc and 2.8% lead, 5m at 16.5% zinc and 1.7% lead and 4.2m at 15.4% zinc and 5% lead.

“The discovery of new high-grade mineralised lenses below the main gallery is a major development for Variscan,” managing director Stewart Dickson said.

“It suggests significant potential for discovering additional lenses throughout the San Jose Mine as the remainder of the mine has had barely any drilling to test for lower lying lenses.

“In aggregate, that could provide considerable scale and tonnage potential.”

Variscan Mines share price today:

EMMERSON RESOURCES (ASX: ERM)

Gold minnow Emmerson Resources is one of a handful of gold and copper explorers honing in on the Northern Territory as a growth market for the Australian gold space.

It recently signed a new joint venture deal with private Tennant Consolidated Mining Group to deliver projects in the 5.5Moz Tennant Creek mineral field after terminating a joint venture with Territory Resources last year.

Emmerson revealed a number of high grade, shallow gold hits today that the company says demonstrate the potential for small-scale, revenue building open pit mining, including 8m at 15 grams per tonne from 16m at the Black Snake prospect, and 5m at 3.93g/t from the early stage Susan target.

TCMG is planning to build a central mill in Tennant Creek by 2022, with Black Snake joining the Chariot and Mauretania prospects in being prepared for JORC resource estimates.

Emmerson Resources share price today:

ELEMENT 25

Element 25 says it has secured access to the Utah Point facility in Port Hedland to prepare for bulk exports from its Butcherbird Manganese Mine.

Located south of Newman in WA’s rich Pilbara mining district, the deal with the Pilbara Port Authority will enable shipments from the 390ktpa to leave Australia’s shores from next month.

Butcherbird boasts a JORC compliant resource of 263 million tonnes of manganese ore, with E25 pushing the button on the project after a PFS last year that put a cost of just $17 million on getting the mine up and running.

Manganese is used in steel production and battery cathodes, with E25 saying it is working towards developing the world’s first “zero carbon manganese” for EV cathodes.

Element 25 share price today:

DESERT METALS (ASX: DM1)

(Up on no news)

Listed on the ASX last year in a $5 million IPO, Desert Metals had nothing to report this morning but climbed 31 per cent to 56 cents regardless.

It is looking for nickel at the northern tip of the WA’s rich Yilgarn craton.

The Rob Stuart-led explorer announced on May 4 it had hit magmatic massive sulphides from the Innouendy prospect but has been quiet since.

That came in the first two holes of a 13-hole drilling program targeting conductive plates at Innouendy and Irrida Hill (about 20km away) which it believes could be caused by massive sulphides associated with intrusive Ni-Cu-PGE deposits.

It was believed to the first intersection of massive sulphides in its Narryer camp, which includes ground explored by the former Western Mining Corporation.

Desert Metals share price today:

OAR RESOURCES (ASX: OAR)

(Up on no news)

Oar Resouces is searching for kaolin and halloysite at its Gibraltar project in South Australia, to the north of Andromeda Metals’ (ASX: ADN) Mt Hope kaolin project.

It also has ground near Chalice’s Julimar discovery along with early stage exploration tenure in Nevada in the US, where it is chasing an exploration target of 1.5-3Moz of gold and Peru.

Oar had no market sensitive news to report but did release a pre-recorded presentation to the ASX from a virtual conference.