Resources Top 5: Wildcat up 250% since pouncing on FMG-adjacent lithium project

Australian Gold & Copper uncovers strongly anomalous 5km-long gold-silver and base metals trend at Bongongalong
Lithium-gold play Wildcat notches up 250% monthly gain on outsized volumes
Australian Vanadium secures Australian Government grant up to $49m to advance namesake project; Bryah to benefit

Here are the biggest small cap resources winners in early trade, Tuesday May 30.

WILDCAT RESOURCES (ASX:WC8)

(Up on no news)

The junior lithium-gold play has notched up a 250% monthly gain on outsized volumes, largely thanks to a savvy lithium project acquisition.

The historical Tabba Tabba tantalum mine and lithium-tantalum project in the Pilbara includes a bunch of mining leases – important if you want to get into production quickly — large areas of outcropping pegmatites, and a high-grade 318,000t at 950ppm Ta2O5 tantalum deposit.

The project, briefly explored and mined by Pilbara Minerals (ASX:PLS) in 2015, was historically a tanty asset so assays for lithium are limited.

However, there are some nice hits like 8m at 1.42% Li2O from 4m for WC8 to follow up.

More importantly, FMG has drilled out a lithium orebody right next door and has reportedly put in for a mining lease.

Meanwhile, finalised gold assay results from the Mt Adrah project were due to be released today, 30 May 2023.

Should be any day now.

The $70m capped stock had just under $5m in the bank at the end of March. It is now prepping a ~$7m cap raise, which would give it well more than $10m to play with.

GOLDEN MILE RESOURCES (ASX:G88)

A recent ~$260,000 shortfall offer at 1.6c/sh was snapped up by Rajiv Ramnarayan, 50% shareholder in Singapore-based commodity trading and resources company Equentia.

“Rajiv’s extensive expertise in the Indonesian market and deep knowledge of the nickel industry makes him an ideal strategic investor for Golden Mile and is an endorsement of our Quicksilver nickel-cobalt project,” G88 CEO Damon Dormer says.

The WA project has an established 26.3Mt resource grading 0.64% Ni & 0.04% Co (168,000t of nickel and 11,300t of cobalt), plus rare earths and scandium.

It has now completed a small metallurgical drilling program to de-risk the process flowsheet and provide confidence to proceed to a Scoping Study, the first proper look at the economics of building a project.

Meanwhile, three “exciting untested high priority gold targets” will be targeted for drilling at the Yuinmery project in WA’s Murchison region.

Yuinmery Trend, Happy Camper and Pirates Patch join the Elephant Reef, Ladies Patch and Hammerhead gold prospects which were upgraded by shallow aircore drilling last year.

These targets are within a large ~5.8km long x 1.1km wide area of gold-in-soil enrichment, 12km from the high grade 3.2Moz Youanmi deposit being redeveloped by Rox Resources (ASX:RXL).

It is also down the road from Ramelius Resources’ (ASX:RMS) super high grade Penny West mine.

The $6m capped minnow is up 25% year-to-date. It has ~$1.7m in the bank.

BRYAH RESOURCES (ASX:BYH)

Australian Vanadium Limited (ASX:AVL) has secured an Australian Government grant of up to $49m to advance its namesake project.

The grant includes BYH’s collaboration on the recovery of 16.1Mt grading 762ppm nickel, 212ppm copper and 231ppm cobalt from the vanadium tails stream.

BYH, which has retained all the nickel and copper rights over the project, will now be working with AVL to complete a feasibility study to recover them from the tails stream.

Previous metallurgical test work has shown a floatation circuit can make a sulphide concentrate of up to 6.3% base metals copper, cobalt and nickel, BYH CEO Ashley Jones says.

“Importantly, throughout the BFS, AVL has provisioned space in the plant design for the floatation circuit.

“Bryah benefits from the portion of the grant to finalise studies, and benefits from the whole grant as it moves AVL closer to developing the Australian Vanadium Project.”

The $7m capped junior is down 33% year-to-date.

AUSTRALIAN GOLD AND COPPER (ASX:AGC)

AGC has uncovered a huge, strongly anomalous 5km-long gold-silver and base metals trend at Bongongalong, part of the Gundagai project in NSW.

The last time this area was explored almost 50 years ago sporadic drilling pulled up lead, zinc and silver over wide intervals.

These hits included higher grade intercepts such as 1.5m at 7.2% Pb+Zn and 100g/t Ag. Gold was not routinely assayed for, the company says.

“Such a large, high-tenor soil anomaly is rare, and the drilling completed over 40 years ago was encouraging but insufficient,” AGC MD Glen Diemar says.

“Modern geochemistry and geophysics will help advance this to drill ready stage.

“It is a huge target that is underlain by Cambian-Ordovician oceanic mafic rock that are considered incredibly fertile.”

The $6m capped explorer is flat year-to-date. It had $2.8m in the bank at the end of March.

WARRIEDAR RESOURCES (ASX:WA8)

Maybe some ticker nearology going on here with WC8.

The gold explorer reported some solid hits from the Rothschild deposit, part of the Fields Find project in the Murchison of WA.

Results like 5m @ 4.36g/t Au from 91m (ending in mineralisation) “confirm Warriedar’s interpretation that the Rothschild deposit is much larger than currently defined in terms of both strike and depth extent”.

The drilling at Rothschild was 47 RC holes for 7,529m. Results have now been received and released for nine holes; the rest are pending.

However, WA8 says the results have been so good it has accelerated scout-drilling targeting ‘Rothschild analogues’, with similar or better geophysical responses.