ASX Runners of the Week: Infini, Xstate, Pure Foods & Battery Age

As all things precious metals steal the limelight, a little-known uranium explorer Infini Resources has shot the lights out this week to headline Bulls N’ Bears Runners of the Week. 

The company intersected brilliant yellow uranium visuals in diamond drilling in Newfoundland, Canada, sending its stock price vertical on high-grade discovery potential. 

Gold has once again been going silly, blasting past US$4000 an ounce (A$6100) for the first time ever, as global economies this week roared with fresh chaos. 

The chaos bodes well for the safe haven metals, which are experiencing an influx of new physical fund buying outside of its usual central bank clientele.

In the United States, investors are increasingly rattled. The US government shutdowns have dragged into week two, as the Democrats voted for a sixth time to block a Republican stopgap funding measure to reopen government departments, keeping much of the federal workforce home or working without pay.

Global markets are also beginning to question a potential bubble amongst the AI tech elite, as giants like Oracle stumble to sustain profit sprints and margins shrink. 

Elsewhere, the EU is gearing up to slap a 50 per cent tariff on steel imports, in a Trump style tactic to tackle Chinese overcapacity head-on.

As a result, China has finally turned off the taps for its endless flow of rare earths, placing export controls that spell out intention to limit global supply – a great thing for the price….and Aussie explorers. 

And potential Nobel peace laureate, none other than one President Donald J Trump says he could have actively brokered a major ceasefire and peace framework to end the two-year Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. 

Trump was quick to tout his hard work on “phase 1” of the truce, via his Truth Social app, calling it the first steps toward a “strong, durable and everlasting peace” and something about the biggest thing that has happened in the Middle east in 3000 years. 

The Bulls N Bears’ Runners cavalcade this week is a promising mix behind the atomic uranium chart topper, Infini Resources. A gas hunter has flown on its hydrocarbons strike in Queensland, a Tasmanian gourmet gem has sashayed onto shelves, conquering the Coles aisles with a country wide invasion. And an Argentinean gold-silver hopeful got the greenlight to drill baby drill, unleashing the drill bit on its monster precious metals play.

INFINI RESOURCES LIMITED (ASX: I88) 

Up 245% (22c – 76c)

There’s no place like first place and last week line honours for Bulls N’ Bears Runner of the Week went to Canadian uranium explorer Infini Resources which has gone nuclear, blasting off on off-the-scale early x-ray results (XRF) and eye-watering yellow uranium visuals from its flagship Portland Creek project in Newfoundland. 

The junior hit paydirt right out of the gate in its phase two diamond drilling program, nailing elevated uranium readings across a monster 284-metre section in one hole with the portable XRF screaming peaks of 12,000 parts per million (ppm) uranium at 270-m and 11,700 ppm at 289m. 

With swathes of yellow uraninite coating joint surfaces grading up to a whopping 1.17 per cent uranium mineralisation, the discovery looks to have the makings of Canada's uranium elite. Deposits so high-grade and rich are practically reactor-ready off the shovel.

The stellar hits came from the initial holes in a planned 2500m campaign testing up to 12 priority targets along a structural corridor stretching over six kilometres. 

The project is laced with uranium-in-soil anomalies that have geologists salivating. 

Importantly, over 90 per cent of the XRF readings in that 284m stretch from 28m to 312m clocked between 1000 ppm and 12,000 ppm uranium, setting the stage for lab assays that could rewrite the project's playbook. 

Infini shot the lights out here last year too, with head-turning anomalies at surface topping 74,997 ppm uranium oxide (7.5%) that got the market buzzing harder than the Geiger counter. 

The current phase two effort almost immediately struck noteworthy values, underscoring extensive mineralisation and hinting at a large polymetallic system brewing underground.

The company says its mineralisation is tied to fractures and cavity zones in intensely altered granites with rubble and breccia pipes acting like superhighways for uranium-bearing fluids to flood in. 

And get this -  the structurally controlled system is throwing up anomalous gold too, albeit only via XRF right now. 

Portland Creek sprawls over 149 square kilometres of mining-friendly Newfoundland in eastern Canada. But here's the kicker – drilling has only scratched two of those 12 targets so far, leaving a vast untapped corridor that screams monster potential.

The company’s stock ambled at first on announcement, before the visuals lit the fuse, sending its shares parabolic up 245 per cent from the week before close. Punters traded Infini from its 22 cent close the week before to a high of 76 cents on a frenzy of $15 million in shares traded.

They piled in as word spread of those brilliant yellow cores turning the explorer into an instant uranium darling. With assays pending and 2000m more drilling locked in, Infini could be staring down a resource discovery that catapults it from minnow to mid-tier like so many Canadian uranium stories of ASX past. 

It’s a beautiful thing; spectacular yellow in drill core from Infini Resources Portland Creek uranium project in Canada. Credit: File.
 

XSTATE RESOURCES LIMITED (ASX: XST) 

Up 242% (2.1c – 7.2c)

Just getting pipped at the post this week was Aussie oil and gas player Xstate Resources, which teamed up with farm-in partner Elixir Energy to drill into an eyebrow-raising gas column at its Diona-1 well in Queensland's onshore Surat-Bowen Basin. 

The dynamic oil and gas duo revealed preliminary hits from the well that had reached to 2479m measured depth, while punching through both primary and secondary reservoir targets before stumbling into a 181m hydrocarbon-prone Permian-to-basement sequence starting at that depth.

What followed was a belter of an over-pressured gas column, complete with a kick that forced multiple hikes in mud weights and frantic circulation to bleed the overflow of gas out of the hole.

Management is quick to note those mud weight bumps are generally a cracker sign, pointing to real pressure build-up and potential commercial flows once everything is said and done. 

The discovery is now pending wireline logs and further analysis and the well is now pushing to its final target depth of about 2530m, followed quickly by a full logging blitz to harvest the intel before spilling the final interpreted volumes. 

Xstate shares ignited on the news, rocketing 163 per cent from 19 c to a 50c high on a whopping $9.4 million in stock traded that day alone, with over 164 million shares flipping between punters. That accounts for about 65 per cent of the register in a volume explosion not seen in the company’s history.

The Diona prospect is a shallow gas and oil sweet spot hugging the pipeline linking the Silver Springs gas plant to the Waggamba field in the prolific Surat-Bowen Basin, one of Queensland's go-to zones for conventional hydrocarbons. 

With east coast gas prices twitching on supply wobbles, a hit here could unlock cashflows to fuel more drilling and another charge into Xstate.

PURE FOODS TASMANIA LIMITED (ASX: PFT) 

Up 184% (2.5c – 7.1c)

Nabbing bronze on last week’s Runners podium is Pure Foods Tasmania which waltzed into the spotlight on Tuesday, flaunting its national ranging expansion for its Tasmanian Pâté brand across the Coles Supermarkets empire. 

The deal swells distribution from a modest 300 stores to a nationwide 700, with the rest rolling out over coming weeks and initial September orders clocking in more than ten times the old monthly average. 

That's no small fry sales agreement. Pure Foods is hinting at an annualised kicker of $500,000 to $600,000 straight into the annual coffers, dwarfing prior Tasmanian Pâté hauls and greasing the wheels for the company's turnaround.

At its peak, Pure Food’s shares surged 184 per cent from last week's 2.5 cent close, hitting a high of 7.1 cents - a level not contemplated since mid-2024.

Well positioned to keep the turnaround train chugging, Pure Foods could feast on this Coles lifeline to plate up profits and maybe even eye the bigger leagues.

BATTERY AGE MINERALS (ASX: BM8) 
Up 160% (9.8c – 25.5c)

Rounding out the Runners roster last week and tapping the precious metals vein was Battery Age Minerals which charged ahead on drilling green lights for its El Aguila gold-silver project in Argentina's fabled Patagonia.

Local officials gave the company the environmental nod as drilling authorisations for a maiden reverse circulation campaign followed a successful environmental impact assessment. 

Battery Age locked in the pristine ground in an opportunistic farm-in deal back in January this year, snagging up to 100 per cent of El Aguila.

Surface sampling has already dished up some rippers with grabs hitting 174.58 g/t gold and a blistering 4739 g/t silver underlining the shot at large-scale high-grade pockets that could scale to district glory. 

The company has locked in a drill contractor, technical geos, field techs and assay labs while prepping site infrastructure comms setups and eco-monitors ahead of rig mobilization - all systems are now go for a 2000-metre program blending infill on known hits with discovery darts at fresh chances.

Batttery Age says El Aguila's is laced with promise from high-res soil geochem ground magnetics and gradient IP-resistivity sweeps that flagged a pipeline of targets ripe for the drill bit. 

The company’s stock rode the approvals like a stallion, up 160 per cent from 9.8 cents to 25.5 cents on $2.8 million worth of paper swapping hands.

The RC blitz will stitch resource definition with growth probes, testing strike continuity depth plunges and priority zones where historical drilling coughed up multiples like 0.55m at 40.55 g/t gold and 107 g/t silver. Over 100 surface grabs have logged those eye-poppers including 174.6 g/t Au and 327 g/t Ag, truly staggering bonanza grades. 

In a crazy gold-silver price environment that's as potent as it gets, this setup leverages Argentina's mining-friendly reforms and proximity to ports and power to chase tier-one mining status, as the ounces add up quickly when they run several ounces to the tonne.

The farm-in structure keeps the cash burn low while upside is sky-high and a massive grade silver hit just as the global silber price breaks though US$50 an ounce is a beautiful thing.

With 2000m of drilling on the menu to test Battery Age’s prized asset, any successful intercepts could unearth a mint of fortunes for the junior. Those unbelievable high-grades in a gold-silver mix for an exploration play can easily spark the market in a white hot precious metals bull market – and that is happening right now.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au