• 1VG surges on new rare-earth discovery 
  • GSR prepares for PGE drilling near to GAL’s Callisto 
  • HMX identifies strong IP anomalies at Mount Hope within the Mount Isa copper district

Here are the biggest small-cap resource winners in early trade, Wednesday July 20.

 

VICTORY GOLDFIELDS (ASX:1VG)

Number one spot goes to 1VG for its ‘HIGH VALUE CRITICAL RARE EARTH ELEMENT’ discovery at the Mafeking and North Stanmore Project, about 15km from the Cue township in Western Australia.

Investors are loving this stock up at the moment – shares surged more than 65% this morning on the news.

1VG returned 25 4-metre composite samples showing high concentrations of Total Rare Earth Oxides (TREO) that exhibit a high ratio of Heavy Rare Earth Oxides (HREO) and gold.

Highlights include average HREO of 419ppm, average TREO of 1020ppm, highest TREO concentration of 3,872ppm, intersections of up to 16m (and remain open), highest gold intersection of 0.5g/t and current strike length extending more than 1km at a width of 200m.

1VG executive chairman Brendan Clark says this is a ‘significant moment’ for the company and its shareholders.

“This exploration success is comparable to several global saprolite deposits that also contain the critical metal scandium,” Clark says.

“Adamas Intelligence forecasts that the value of global magnet rare earth oxide consumption will triple from $15.1bn in 2022 to $46.2bn by 2035 – which affirms the potential opportunity with this discovery.”

This ~$8m market cap explorer is up 5% year-to-date.

 

MOHO RESOURCES (ASX:MOH)

(Up on no news)

MOH has been focused on nickel sulphides at its Black Swan prospect within the wider Silver Swan North Project in Western Australia.

The company recently completed a drilling program where four holes of the 12 identified a 25m to 30m depression in the komatiites at the southern end plunging southeast.

Further drilling of the depression will be required to determine if it develops further into a channel at depth and provides a site for settling and accumulation of nickel sulphide mineralisation.

This komatiite is also open to the southeast but closed off to the northwest.

“The drilling program has provided critical information for Moho to vector in on the nickel sulphide potential at Black Swan South,” managing director Ralph Winter said at the time.

 

GREENSTONE RESOURCES (ASX:GSR)

Back in June, GSR raised $4.9m to fund PGE exploration right next door to Galileo’s (ASX:GAL) recent company changing discovery.

GSR and its ‘Mt Thirsty’ nickel-copper JV partner Conico (ASX:CNJ) have both been surging on neurology fervour since GAL hit palladium paydirt last month.

Today, the company says drilling is set to kick off at Mt Thirsty in early August, having now secured all permits, agreements and service providers required.

Instrumental to this was the support of the Ngadju who have continued to be a supportive partner, GSR managing director Chris Hansen explained.

“The multidisciplinary drill target generation process is now nearing completion, with targets being ranked and prioritised, we are excited to be testing the full potential of Mt Thirsty.”

Importantly for the Mount Thirsty JV (MTJV), Galileo’s recent discovery at Callisto is only 200m from the northern tenement boundary held by the MTJV.

GSR is a ~$60.8m market cap explorer with $3.94m cash in the bank at the end of the March quarter.

NOW READ: A dodgy guide to recovering palladium 

 

HAMMER METALS (ASX:HMX)

HMX shares on a tear after having identified strong IP anomalies at Mount Hope within the Mount Isa copper district, where a recent IP survey by Carnaby Resources (ASX:CNB) extended across Hammer’s exploration tenement.

This enabled HMX to completed its survey to a sufficient depth profile – and even better,  these anomalies have been observed on the edge of the survey within Hammer’s 100% owned tenement.

Managing director Daniel Thomas says it is great to see the renewed interest in exploration in the Mt Isa district.

“Whilst Hammer is currently focusing the bulk of our exploration efforts at Ajax East and Kalman, we’re now also considering an initial drill test of the South Hope target alongside further analysis of the IP results, their potential relationship with copper mineralisation and the surrounding geology,” he adds.

Hammer has an IP crew on site and will consider additional IP surveys across its Mount Hope prospects to further refine key targets.

 

TRITON MINERALS (ASX:TON)

(Up on no news)

Advanced graphite play, TON, owns the Ancuabe Graphite Project in the East African country of Mozambique.

On June 14, the site came under attack from insurgents with TON declaring a ‘force majeure’ event.

“We anticipate this force majeure declaration will remain in place until such time operations at site can be safely resumed,” the company said at the time.

TON remains fully committed to the Ancuabe project and continues to work on the finalisation of its stage-1 scoping study, where it is targeting the processing of 100 to 125,000tpa of ore and production of 5 to 8,000tpa of graphite concentrate.

Back in November 2021, the company announced it had signed a binding offtake agreement with Chinese graphite products manufacturer Yichang Xincheng Graphite (Xincheng) in November.

Under the agreement, Triton will supply Xincheng with up to 10,000tpa of flake graphite concentrate from its commercial pilot plant at Ancuabe.

The deal, which will last five years, has the potential to be increased to a larger volume following the full construction of the Ancuabe project which has a target nameplate capacity of 60,000tpa, should the initial phase be successful.

NOW READ: It could be boom time for African graphite mining projects