Who made the gains in May? Goldies hog top spot on the podium

• The top 3 commodities for July include gold, copper and lithium
• DTR takes top spot for biggest monthly stock gain
• Resource Mining Corp nabs honourable mention

With gold prices near record highs and in the vicinity of US$3300/oz, gold explorers and miners continue to crowd the leaderboards for the ASX’s top resource stock gainers of May.

The biggest winner for the month was goldie Dateline Resources (ASX:DTR), up a frankly quite ridiculous 978%. Worth less than $10 million only a month or two ago, the owner of the 1.1Mo Colosseum gold project in California. More on that below.

It was followed by Resource Mining Corporation (ASX:RMI) and Locksley Resources (ASX:LKY) up 460% and 321% respectively.

The Donald likes Dateline

Much of Dateline’s growth can be put down to a shoutout from US President Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform that got investors excited.

DTR owns the 1.1Moz Colosseum gold project, where Trump highlighted the company’s rare earths potential, sitting just a few kms from the Mountain Pass mine.

The company also released an updated scoping study last week based around a gold price estimate lifted from US$2200/oz in a study compiled in October last year to US$2900/oz.

With annual gold production unchanged at 71,000ozpa, that would lift net revenue before tax by 208%from US$398m to US$827m and ups the project’s IRR from 31% to 61%.

Before tax discounted cashflow would rise 234% to US$550m. Also this week DTR reported possible hidden extensions of gold breccia pipes at the project, pointing to the potential for hidden gold zones beyond historical workings.

There’s a nice upside emerging, particularly since all 641 historic drill holes targeted only the breccia pipes with surface exposure and large areas of the property remain effectively untested.

Most popular commodities in May:

Here are the top 50 ASX resources stocks for the month of May

Scroll or swipe to reveal table. Click headings to sort.

Small Cap Standouts

Resource Mining Corporation (ASX:RMI)

Exploration at the company’s Mpanda copper-gold project has been the catalyst for its gains in May, with the company reporting impressive gold and copper grades from rock samples up to 36.7g/t gold and 11.89g/t copper from Kabungu and 13.58% copper and 3.24g/t gold from Stalike.

Ten prospects make up the Mpanda Project and RMI believes results to date provide an indicator of the presence of an extensive mineralised system.

There have been 16 rock chip samples from small-scale mines gathered within RMC’s tenements with five samples exceeding 11g/t gold and two exceeding 10% copper from the Kabungu prospect.

Last month the company also reported strong support for a $2m placement at 2.1c per share to accelerate drilling.

Plus, looking forward, RMI is also assessing near-term production opportunities at Stalike and Kabungu by utilising nearby existing third-party processing infrastructure.

Locksley Resources (ASX:LKY)

Locksley saw some great gains in May, following a $1.47m placement at 4c per share to fund an upcoming exploration campaign, including drilling, at the Mojave antimony and rare earths project in California.

While waiting for Bureau of Land Management approvals to be granted, the company’s exploration team will conduct follow-up mapping and rock chip sampling across high-priority antimony, REE, polymetallic and copper targets.

Drilling is expected to begin in the September quarter, and will focus on the El Campo prospect where six holes will be drilled to test TREO of up to 12.1% and the Desert Antimony Mine, with three holes testing high-grade antimony mineralisation of up to 46%.

Notably, Mojave is immediately adjacent to MP Materials’ high-grade Mountain Pass mine and processing facility, which is the only active REE processor in the US and produces ~15% of global REE supply.

REEs and antimony are designated as critical minerals by the US government with the former – particularly magnet REEs – used to manufacture permanent rare earth magnets that are used in electric vehicle motors and wind turbines.

Rock chips at Mojave have returned grades of up to 17% while sampling returned high-grade results of between 3.74% and 9.49% total rare earth oxides within a six-metre wide mineralised zone at the El Campo prospect.

Somerset Minerals (ASX:SMM)

Up 140% for May was Somerset Metals, who completed its acquisition of the Coppermine copper-silver project in Canada, which is adjacent to White Cliff Minerals (ASX:WCN) Rae project.

Drilling at the Coronation prospect also kicked off this month, targeting large coincident geophysical and geochemical anomalies only 7km from WCN’s Danvers prospect – which recently reported 58m at 3.08% copper from 52m.

So far, widespread copper mineralisation has been identified, with assays expected in the next 2-4 weeks.

Somerset is particularly confident of strong results since its extensive land package hosts the strike extensions to White Cliff’s primary Vision, Stark, Thor, and Rocket districts, and most of the ground surrounding the Danvers prospect.

Peak Minerals (ASX:PUA)

PUA saw a gain of 133% for the month, thanks in part to intersecting heavy minerals (HM) across a strike length of 28km at the Minta rutile project in Cameroon.

The company said the results of up to 3.1m at 8.4% HM, 6.8m at 2.8%, 3.5m at 5.0% and 6.3m at 2.4% from an additional 29 holes of reconnaissance exploration auger drilling confirm the project’s significant scale.

Not to mention, the initial intercepts are adjacent to the discovery hole of 4m at 1.57% HM which included 4m at 1.05% rutile.

“This second batch of results from the drilling program at the Minta Rutile Project in Cameroon continues to confirm the extensive scale and consistency of heavy mineral mineralisation across the project area,” Peak Minerals CEO Casper Adson said.

“With the Minta Project spanning over 7000km2 and this initial drilling phase covering approximately 50% of the total project area, these findings underscore the substantial potential of this emerging rutile province.

“These results reinforce the scale of the Minta Project, underscoring its potential as a significant new source of rutile and potentially a globally significant rutile province.”

We wonder whether there is a case of mistaken identity here. Peak’s big lift came around the same time African rare earths developer Peak Rare Earths (ASX:PEK) was taken out at a massive premium for $150.5m by Shenghe Resources.

Oceana Lithium (ASX:OCN)

Up 119% for May, OCN holds the Napperby project in NT which covers around ~650km2 within within the Northern Arunta pegmatite province.

It also has the Solonópole project in Brazil where an exploration licence extension is pending for the promising Nera prospect.

This month the company announced commitments to raise $667,000 towards progressing the projects, and to  identify and assess new complimentary project opportunities.

“Securing additional funds ensures Oceana is well placed to progress the company’s existing assets in Brazil and Australia, as well as continue to assess new project opportunities,” non-executive chairman Martin Helean said.

“We look forward to providing updates on exploration activities across our portfolio in the near term.

“We thank our existing shareholders for their ongoing support, and are pleased to welcome new shareholders to the company.”

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent financial advice before making any financial decisions. While Locksley Resources is a Stockhead advertiser, it did not sponsor this article.