The Australian junior mining sector is nothing if not diverse.
Not only in its range of base metals and both precious and critical minerals that are being hunted every day, but also in the many global regions where they are plying their exploration craft.
This week’s Bulls N’ Bears top ASX runners include junior miners seeking riches and glory in the United States, Brazil and two States within Australia known for producing the goods – Queensland and South Australia. All four of our profiled companies made new discoveries in their pursuit for the critical minerals needed to feed a globally-hungry demand.
So, onto our winners this week and top spot goes to Aruma Resources. It set the market alight with multiple high-grade copper rock-chip samples, plus “bonus” antimony grades from its Fiery Creek project in the Mt Isa copper belt in Queensland.
The company’s Piper prospect produced assays as high as 11.83 per cent, 11.53 per cent and 9.95 per cent copper from the rock chips from across a 600m strike zone, with promising antimony results up to 10,883 parts per million contributing to the price boost in a major way – continuing a trend for the metal’s rise to prominence in the past month.
The Fiery Creek results lit a fire under Aruma’s share price, exploding it upwards from last week’s 1.6c close to a high of 4.7c on the day of the announcement. A rise of 193.75 per cent is a return you would happily accept any week of the year, so there are likely to be plenty of smiling antimony-loving punters out there.
Volume levels felt the full force of the heat in the market, with a staggering 122.3 million shares changing hands on Tuesday and 9.5 million more on Wednesday – a massive rise in comparison to its near 400,000 daily average across the past month of trading.
Encouraging silver results were also returned from the rock samples, including two different samples grading 31.3 grams per tonne, 20.8g/t and 18.8g/t. Aruma says data from soil sampling indicates strong copper anomalism across the Fiery Creek project, extending beyond the Piper and Fiery Creek targets.
Coming in with a second-placed finish this week is mineral explorer, Petratherm. The company excited the market on Thursday when it announced it had discovered high-grade, titanium-rich heavy mineral sands (HMS) at its Muckanippie project near Coober Pedy in SA.
Petratherm says ground reconnaissance involving mapping, rock-chip surface sampling and the re-assaying of historic drilling returned high-grade titanium oxide across several kilometres of its ground at primarily two prospective areas, Rosewood and Claypan.
Notable rock-chip sample results that had market punters salivating included 49.4 per cent, 38.5 per cent, 33.6 per cent and 33.2 per cent titanium oxide. All four rock chips also contained the valuable vanadium oxide grading up to 0.23 per cent.
Petratherm’s shares leapt from their previous 2c close to open on Wednesday at 4.4c and hit an intraday high of 4.5c. The stock retreated to close at 3.8c, but again snuck back up to an intraday high of 4.3c on Thursday. Volumes for the company’s shares exceed 500,000 on about one in every 10 trading days, so volumes of 10.3 million on Wednesday and 3.2 million on Thursday showed punters really sat up and took notice.
Management wisely set out to gain access to samples from wide-spaced air-core (AC) drilling undertaken by the SA Mines Department back in 1991 and which were stored at the State’s core reference library. The samples drilled on a north-to-South track, with drillholes about 1 km apart, had never been analysed for titanium, which is considered a critical mineral by many global governments.
Re-assaying of the historic drill material produced some solid numbers that included 36m at 4 per cent titanium oxide from surface, including 2m at 14.9 per cent from 10m, 24m going 3.6 per cent also from surface and a 20m intersection from 2m grading 4 per cent with a stellar 10m slice running 6 per cent from 2m.
Management says HMS mineralisation across a sizeable area occurs from surface or within 10m below ground and has significant potential for a bulk-tonnage direct shipping ore (DSO) operation. It says the Rosewood prospect’s outcropping mineralisation extends for 9km west-to-east and the wide-spaced historic drilling confirms HMS mineralisation extends for a minimum 6km to the north.
Yet again, everyone’s new best friend antimony has helped US explorer Locksley Resources soar into third place and into the minds of the market’s true believers, who see the hottest metal going around as critical to the needs of industry. The lustrous grey metal is used in solar panels, sheet metal, storage batteries and semi-conductors, among other uses.
Locksley has been on the prowl in the 124,000-square-kilometre Mohave Desert that straddles two massive US States in California and Nevada. The company’s Mohave project is actually in California, however, it sits about a 45-minute drive from the gambling mecca of Las Vegas.
Management originally decided to roll the dice for rare earths as its project is adjacent to the giant Mountain Pass mine that is the only rare earths-producing operation in the US. However, it then wisely chose to interrogate the mineral potential outside the known rare earths zone and has uncovered high-grade antimony.
The company’s field crew went on the hunt for gaming chips – er, I mean rock chips – and discovered samples running as high as 11.2 per cent and 8.33 per cent antimony in the site’s North Block. Four samples also produced greater than 0.5 per cent copper, with a peak hit of 4.12 per cent.
The North Block section of ground holds the historic Desert Antimony mine where reports of previous production ranged from between 100 tonnes to 1000 tonnes, with grades running from 15 per cent to 20 per cent antimony (stibnite). The old underground mine workings consisted of quartz-antimony veins.
Punters don’t seem to care if it is called antimony or stibnite, they just want in at the moment and bid Locksley’s share price up to 5c, for a solid gain of more than 117 per cent for the week. The at-times thinly-traded stock saw a massive jump in turnover after Thursday’s announcement, with a whopping 83.8 million shares swapping hands.
As an aside, the amazing “Sin City” is this weekend hosting what is being promoted as the world’s most exciting live sporting event, with UFC 306 taking place in the incredible Sphere venue. If you don’t know what that is, we suggest you Google it and take a look as it is really something else.
The music and entertainment arena is said to have been erected using 22nd-century technology, providing an immersive viewing experience on the world’s biggest high-definition screen the size of about 20 football fields (slight exaggeration!!).
Who would have thought such a ground-breaking venue would ever exist in the area’s once harsh desert environment?
Missing out on a placing this week, but still generating a solid 80 per cent gain is Brazilian critical minerals-rare earths explorer, Enova Mining. The company announced last Friday that drilling had been completed at the Coda North ground within its wider Coda project, with 1500 samples awaiting assaying.
The project sits in Vespasiano in the Belo Horizonte metro region within Brazil’s renowned mining State of Minas Gerais.
Although trading volume levels of more than 20 million on the day were well above its usual numbers, the closing price of 1c was only slightly above the previous day’s 0.9c.
However, the share price started to gain momentum mid-week despite no further announcements, hitting 1.7c on Tuesday and stretching to 1.8c on Wednesday. Volumes jumped up to 23.7 million and 29.4 million, respectively, the company’s biggest turnover since early June.
Enova’s drill program comprised 850m of diamond drilling and 985m of reverse-circulation (RC) drill bit probing, with management saying it encountered up to a 70m-thick zone for potential mineralisation in the kamafugite strata – the host rock for rare earths. It revealed today that assay results returned 18m at 4447ppm total rare earth oxides (TREO) and 15.4m going 3128ppm.
So, that wraps up this week’s Runners column and regular readers will remember comments from several weeks back that suggested junior mining companies may be moving back into “vogue”.
The top four this week consisted of explorers discovering an assortment of metals in a variety of regions, potentially continuing the small mining sector’s rise back to prominence.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Craig Nolan
