In another dazzling week for the metals market, gold, silver, platinum, copper, tin and zinc surged with gusto, to all record solid gains.
Silver remained firmly in the spotlight as the standout performer, with its price soaring more than 15 per cent in the past month to outpace its peers. Platinum and palladium also flexed their metallic muscles, each spiking with double-digit gains exceeding 10 per cent in the same period, electrifying investors with their upward charge.
The relentless rally in precious and certain base metals has ignited a firestorm of enthusiasm for listed miners and intrepid explorers, as insatiable demand for precious, base and critical mineral stocks fuels market fervour.
Every head-turning announcement - be it a drill hit or a strategic coup - sends ripples through the ASX, with investors clamouring to ride the wave.
This week, a posse of junior gold explorers stole the show, and a series of market-moving reveals sent punters into a frenzy of snapping up shares like prospectors panning for nuggets in a gold-rush stream.
The standouts in this week’s Bulls N’ Bears parade included one junior dazzling with high-grade gold intercepts, each drill core a testament to untapped riches beneath the earth. Another struck a masterful mining agreement with a top-tier, full-service contracting firm, locking in expertise to transform dirt into dollars. A third made a bold land grab, securing prime Western Australian acreage in a region where the ground practically hums with mineral promise.
And then there was the small-cap explorer that turned heads with a jaw-dropping antimony find, a critical mineral wildcard that sent its stock soaring into the stratosphere.
These tales of exploration and enterprise underscore a market alive with opportunity, where each announcement is a spark that could ignite the next big rally.
TAMBOURAH METALS (ASX: TMB)
up 388% (4.5c – 22c)
This week’s Bulls N’ Bears ASX Runner of the Week is WA-focused gold and critical minerals explorer Tambourah Metals after the company’s share price rocketed like a Formula-1 beast tearing up the track. On Wednesday, the WA gold and critical minerals maverick saw its stock catapult from Tuesday’s modest 4.1 cents a share close to a dazzling 14.5c peak, fuelled by a staggering 119.6 million shares traded.
The momentum didn’t falter, with Thursday pushing the stock to a 52-week zenith of 22c a share on 66.9 million shares traded, clinching a jaw-dropping 388 per cent weekly surge that left investors starry-eyed.
The catalyst? A golden thunderbolt from Tambourah’s phase two air core drilling at its Beatty Park South project, 160 kilometres north of Meekatharra in WA’s mineral-rich Mid West region.
The campaign struck paydirt with a showstopping 24-metre intercept at 18.8 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from a mere 20m depth, including a heart-pounding 4m at 92.2g/t from 24m and a further 4m at 14.3 g/t from 28m. The glittering results were backed by solid 3m hits at 6.6 g/t and 3.7 g/t, painting a picture of a burgeoning gold system ready to rewrite Tambourah’s destiny.
The phase two program, comprising eight slimline reverse circulation holes for 785m, plunged to 100m to probe basement rock and chase the tail of the company’s phase one triumph - a 6m hit at 25.8g/t from 30m.
Drilling fanned out along strike and east of this high-grade zone, with the results suggesting Beatty Park South is no fleeting spark but potentially a smouldering goldfield with legs.
Tambourah believes it has unearthed an emerging system, with only 25 per cent of a 500m-long anomaly tested, leaving the prospect tantalisingly open along strike and at depth. Plans for more drilling to target both oxide and fresh rock are already in the works to unlock its full potential.
NELSON RESOURCES (ASX: NES)
up 300% (0.3c – 1.2c)
Fuelled by a game-changing mining contract, Nelson Resources shares erupted this week, blazing it a trail to claim second spot on this week’s Bulls N’ Bears Runners list.
The spark was Nelson’s blockbuster agreement with goldfields titan MEGA Resources, which sent the company’s stock soaring like a comet across the WA outback.
The deal locks in MEGA to deliver drilling, mining and haulage for Nelson’s Yarri project, 140km northeast of Kalgoorlie.
The news ignited a 300 per cent weekly surge as Nelson’s share price rocketed from last Friday’s 0.3c a share close to a dazzling 12-month peak of 1.2c by Thursday. The market’s pulse quickened as trading volumes soared.
Monday’s 26.7 million shares traded swelled to 73.5 million on Tuesday, 75.6 million on Wednesday and a thunderous 84 million by Thursday - a crescendo of demand for this evolving junior goldie.
The Yarri project, nestled in WA’s gold-rich heartland, will bask in the glow of MEGA’s expertise. The company is a subsidiary of India’s BGR Mining & Infra Group, one of the subcontinent’s mining giants. MEGA is no greenhorn, with a proven track record supporting WA’s junior gold explorers in unlocking their glittering deposits.
Under the agreement’s golden terms, MEGA will bankroll up to $500,000 in exploration to reach a decision to mine, then pour up to $10 million into initial development, covering mining and haulage to a third-party mill, as well as the necessary geological and engineering wizardry.
MEGA’s discussions with nearby processing plants are humming along. A planned 70:30 profit split from gold sales, with MEGA taking the lion’s share, still promises a lucrative payday from Yarri’s gold haul.
In a market where gold is commanding more than $5800 per golden ounce, Nelson’s pact with MEGA may be a masterstroke.
CGN RESOURCES (ASX: CGR)
Up 169% (5.2c to 14c)
Bulls N’ Bears always loves a late runner and was delighted to see CGN Resources burst out of the blocks this morning to fly into third place in this week’s list.
After closing last week at 5.2c and 5.1c last night, the company’s shares opened at 7c a share this morning - then put on the afterburners to zoom up to a high of 14c per share on its biggest daily volumes seen in years.
An impressive 10 million shares swapped hands by mid-morning, which marks the first time this calendar year that more than one million of the company’s shares have traded in a single day.
The reason for the catapulting share price was news of a WA golden land grab. CGN has secured two exploration licences 20km south of Leonora, in the Goldfields-Esperance region, about 800km northeast of Perth.
Success in the recent WA tenement ballot gifts CGN the prospective land with known gold intercepts from historical drilling.
The two licences boost the company’s landholdings around its Panhandle project and are close to its Christmas Well project, just north of Leonora.
Notably, both projects occur along strike from several multi-million-ounce gold deposits, with the Panhandle ground perched beautifully between Genesis Minerals’ 8-million-ounce Gwalia and Ulysses gold operations.
Gwalia’s massive gold deposit sits almost smack-bang in the middle of CGN’s two projects, providing optimism for what may be revealed from future exploration at the two sites.
Dart Mining discovered a 0.6 metre massive sulphide antimony-stibnite hit from a depth of 42m, estimated at 70 per cent antimony, from its latest drilling program at the Coonambula antimony-gold project in southeast Queensland. Credit: File.
DART MINING (ASX: DTM)
Up 140% (0.25c – 0.6c)
Storming into fourth place on the Runners list for the week is Dart Mining. Dart has a joint venture earn-in agreement with Great Divide Mining, enabling Dart to earn up to 51 per cent interest in six tenements that form the Coonambula antimony-gold project in central Queensland.
Dart fired up its latest drilling program at Coonambula this week and immediately intersected a 0.6m massive sulphide hit, estimated to be 70 per cent antimony, commonly found as the sulphide mineral stibnite, from a depth of 42m.
The news hit the market like a thunderclap, with punters pouncing on their trading screens faster than kids on a spilled bag of lollies.
A remarkable 448 million shares were scooped up on the day, sending the price rocketing from its previous close at 0.2c to a peak of 0.6c a share.
The company says a second zone of massive sulphide veining was encountered at 70m downhole. It is eagerly awaiting assays, which are due next month.
Dart’s timely strike positions Coonambula as a potential powerhouse in this red-hot metals market.
Antimony has shot to fame in recent times due to Chinese export bans imposed on the critical metal in September last year. The ban caused the metal’s price to run hard and become the latest market darling, with explorers scouring tenement ground and dusting off old drill cores in the chase for this critical metal often entwined with gold.
It has a wide range of vital uses as an alloy metal, hardening bullets and other munitions during their manufacture and bolstering the hardness of lead used in the growing battery storage industry.
In addition, antimony is critical for use in semiconductors and flame retardants, making it indispensable in a world hungry for tech and energy solutions.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Craig Nolan
