Is there a light at the end of the tunnel for oil and Australia? Computer says no, or at least the ASX did this week. The exchange remains wary and wandering, despite our usual bellwether US brethren charging ahead to even higher all-time highs.
Wild swings in oil prices continue to plague our export-heavy economy, with uncertainty and at times, insanity around the US-Iran negotiations, causing the Strait of Hormuz to seemingly open and close faster than the valves on an Aussie investor’s heart.
Oil prices went from a high of US$120 a barrel for Brent last week, to below US$100 a barrel on Thursday following whispers of “peace talks”, before a President Trump Truth Social special sent it north again on Friday morning. That sort of volatility usually means even the traders don’t have a clue what’s going to happen next.
Investors still want to buy risk, but they also know one ugly headline can turn a green session red faster than an Anthony Albanese backflip.
Back home, our government is dealing with the catastrophe the only way it knows how – by taxing Australians more to spend its way out of a crisis.
Prime Minister Albanese is expected to flip on his earlier promise by removing the 50 per cent capital gains tax discount in next week's budget, in a move that could cripple small businesses and long-time share investors.
The move has been described as an "intergenerational rug pull” for young Australians, effectively doubling the burden on a demographic already struggling with housing affordability in Albo's mass immigration burial ground.
How many more backroom high-fives – and other circular hand admirations - about breaking election promises and destroying the next generation’s prosperity have gone down at Labor Party headquarters?
Being economical with the truth clearly doesn’t appear to faze them, as Albo and his disciples continue to deny ever making election promises altogether, seemingly forgetting that television exists and people can easily disprove his “truths” from just a year ago.
Amidst the investor gloom, there was some positive news and a few runners on an otherwise flat week. On the topic of all things oil, our first runner’s share price, whilst parabolic, has been about as turbulent as global oil markets and still took out top prize. It was followed by a fast-starting IPO looking to supply all things copper and silver for the AI revolution to come.
KEY PETROLEUM LIMITED (ASX: KEY)
Up 233% (9c – 30c)
Bulls N’ Bears runner of the week is Aussie oil and gas player Key Petroleum, which saw its share price light up as it eagerly awaits Potential Commercial Area (PCA) approvals for its Cooper-Eromanga Basin tenure in Queensland.
The company has seen a wild slew of substantial shareholder changes in recent weeks as major holders exited stage left, while other cornerstones accidentally breached the ASX's 20 per cent takeovers threshold.
Key has been waiting PCA approvals over its ATP 920 and ATP 924 permits, which, once granted, will give the company up to 15 years of extended tenure security over the prime hydrocarbon permits.
The permits sit in a proven basin with ready access to the privately owned Inland Oil Refinery and various gas pipelines, supporting both oil and gas commercialisation scenarios for our hydrocarbon-starved east coast.
The acreage itself spans the transition zone between the more oil-prone Eromanga and gas-prone Cooper basins, giving the company exposure to the more lucrative and highly sought-after oil production potential.
It seems some on the register are more confident than others about the approvals coming through, leading to the wild swings in its share price in recent weeks.
The company ran from 10c to above 30c, twice over in the past 2 weeks, a wild ride for those white-knuckled shareholders already petrified of the oil sector swings.
If the PCA approvals are granted, Key would gain a considerably de-risked platform, with long-term tenure over its most prospective areas.
The company says such security would mark a pivotal transition from a high-risk explorer to a more credible development-focused junior.
It would also unlock the ability to attract farm-in partners and advance technical studies on its Tanbar gas project and oil prospects, and pursue commercialisation pathways in the world-class basin.
With oil prices remaining stubbornly high, a successful PCA outcome could see the early-stage player steady its footing as a future player in Queensland's prolific Cooper-Eromanga Basin.
KAOKO METALS LTD (ASX: KAO)
Up 125% (20c – 45c)
Taking out silver and making a strong ASX debut this week was Namibia-focused copper explorer Kaoko Metals, after it surged as much as 150 per cent on day one of trading after completing a heavily backed $6.5 million IPO at 20c a share.
Kaoko says it’s wasting no time chasing down high-grade copper and silver in the underexplored Kaoko Copper Belt in Northern Namibia.
The company has already identified 20 kilometres of mineralised strike and 40km of prospective trend, with its top prospect, Chalkos, returning surface grades of up to an astonishing 69.6 per cent copper and two kilograms per tonne silver.
Already regarded as one of Africa's premier mining jurisdictions, Namibia has built a reputation through its world-class uranium sector and growing gold industry, while increasingly emerging as a serious critical minerals destination.
Kaoko says its drill-ready copper portfolio provides a compelling launchpad, particularly following recent exploration success in the region by peers such as Midas Minerals, which outlined a 10.5-million-tonne resource grading 1.6 per cent copper and 21 grams per tonne silver.
The company's ground also sits near the famed Tsumeb Mine, historically one of the world's highest-grade base metal operations, which produced 1.7 million tonnes of copper grading a whopping 4.3 per cent copper.
Its timing may also prove opportune, with copper hovering near record highs as booming demand from AI infrastructure and electrification fuels expectations of a looming long-term supply crunch.
With two drill-ready projects in one of the world’s most prospective copper frontiers and drilling fast approaching, Kaoko is pitching itself as a potential new name in African copper exploration.
And, if the IPO response is anything to go by, plenty of investors agree and are already lapping up the Namibian copper story.
SWIFT TV LTD (ASX: STV)
Up 89% (0.9c – 1.7c)
Kicking it with the big leagues this week is screen slinger Swift TV, after its entertainment platform got the nod from none other than the biggest streaming service on earth, Netflix.
The company’s stock jumped after announcing a deal with the world’s largest paid streaming platform, Netflix, to integrate the app with its packaged entertainment platform after a multi-year certification process.
In a double-whammy, Swift also nabbed direct access to the Google Play Store through its Swift TV interface, becoming an officially “approved” platform for both Google and Netflix in one week.
Swift says it can flip any TV into a smart hub for entertainment, chats and information, targeting major markets from aged care to hospitality and even mining camps.
The company already has sticky recurring revenue from clients such as Rio Tinto, Shell and Opal Healthcare – and has quietly been edging out Foxtel with on-demand grit across Australia.
And now, the nod from the hyper-secure Netflix should open the floodgates for future partnerships, allowing deployment across major international hospitality sectors and potential upscaling of enterprise agreements for service providers.
The platform's ability to automatically log users out when they switch rooms or facilities provides Swift TV’s enterprise partners with critical security and operational control in shared living environments.
In mining camps, hotels, and aged care facilities, this feature prevents account sharing, unauthorised access, and credential leakage - issues that are common when multiple workers or guests use the same devices.
The enhanced security and its room-level management capabilities directly support revenue growth by justifying premium pricing for Swift’s partners, enabling longer-term, larger-scale contracts, and accelerating adoption across both existing and new international clients.
CAPRICE RESOURCES LTD (ASX: CRS)
Up 82% (7.7c – 14c)
Rounding out our runners with a hit for the ages this week was WA goldie Caprice Resources.
The company positively struck gold with an outstanding 22-metre hit running an eye-watering 66.2g/t gold this week, which featured an even richer 8-metre interval at a stunning 181g/t from just 42m downhole.
The company says the monster strike came from the Vadrian target within its Island project in WA’s white-hot Murchison goldfields.
Even more impressively, the intercept appears to have struck a new mineralised zone parallel to the project's primary Vadrians lode, some 120m away.
Management – and the market, it seems, believes these findings materially strengthen the interpretation of Island as a multi-lode, high-grade gold system.
One high-grade lode is fine, but stacked lodes parallel to one another could vastly improve the project economics and open up the optionality of a low-cost open-pit mining scenario down the track.
The combination of grade, thickness, shallow depth, and proximity to the existing ounces was more than enough for gold hunters to come pouring in, sending the share price up 82 per cent on the week to breach the magical $100 million market cap mark for serious explorers.
Samples from the all-important drill holes, sunk directly beneath the intercept, have already been sent to the labs for fast-track assays, with follow-up drilling of this high-grade strike also being pushed for an expected kick-off next week.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Andrew Todd
