It feels like a rinse-and-repeat of the Bad News Bears for global markets, with no obvious reprieve in sight.
That was certainly the mood among commodity analysts this week after oil kicked off proceedings at an uncomfortable US$110 a barrel, following an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia attack that knocked out a major Saudi pipeline carrying roughly five per cent of global oil supply. Even JP Morgan’s commodity team is in shambles, admitting that for the first time since the Iran conflict began they “Don’t have a baseline view. We simply don’t know how to model the endgame.”
Oil cooled a little as the week progressed, but once the genie is out of the bottle, inflation has a nasty habit of hanging around. Every truck, ship, supermarket and household eventually feels the pain of triple-digit oil.
And, right on cue, the US 10-year Treasury yield finally cracked through the psychologically important five per cent level as the Federal Reserve locked in its first rate hike since 2023. New Fed Chair Kevin Warsh delivered a decidedly hawkish message, lifting rates by 25 basis points and signalling another increase – at least - could arrive before year-end.
Amazingly, Wall Street found some serious buyers to end the week as bond yields eased and commodity prices rebounded. The US 10-year yield slipped back below five per cent, ending a relentless nine-session surge and traders did what they do best – pretend nothing happened.
Unfortunately, back home, ever-increasing bond yields tend to seriously filter through to mortgage rates, business lending and housing affordability. The same politicians who spent years celebrating rising house prices are acting surprised that young Australians are fed up with an unfair housing market and tax environment.
True to form, Immigration Minister Tony Burke emerged this week to tackle the housing crisis, announcing that the Government was finally getting serious about cutting migration back to the previously promised – and immediately ignored – levels.
This time, apparently, we should believe them.
In one of the more remarkable political performances of the week, Australians were effectively told by Tony that the property squeeze isn’t really about record population growth colliding with chronic underbuilding. Instead, the problem is that Australians are not packing enough people into each home.
Naturally, the fact that newly built homes are getting smaller and multiple apartments are shrinking in size is a non-factor to Mr Burke, whose level of accountability this week matched only that of his liar-in-chief, Anthony Albanese, who was conveniently away for talks on mass immigration.
Old Tones took it a step further, suggesting migration is actually the solution to housing, rather than the problem - demand and supply don’t exist!
Of course, the fact that many of Labor’s safest seats also happen to contain some of the country’s largest migrant communities has absolutely nothing to do with it, pure coincidence, apparently. If migration is the answer to Australia’s housing shortage, then why have construction and trade workers NEVER featured in the top 10 for skilled visa workers ever? Nope, it’s never the government’s fault; it’s the Australian public yet again.
As the ASX grapples with oil above US$100, inflation well and truly back and bond markets flashing warning signs, our Runners list was understandably sparse. A few lights were shining at the end of the tunnel, with Bulls N’ Bears top spot on the week taken out by an Aussie magnesium hopeful out of Victoria, who apparently is well on its way to producing magnesium metal - not the vitamin – from its process at a site earmarked for South Carolina, USA.
LATROBE MAGNESIUM LTD (ASX: LMG)
Up 133% (0.9c – 2.1c)
The Bulls N’ Bears Runner of the Week is critical minerals maestro Latrobe Magnesium, which more than doubled after it unveiled a US$15 million non-binding letter of support for its world-first hydrometallurgical-thermal magnesium reduction process.
The letter of support (LoS) will provide equity funding to carry out a feasibility study for the company’s previously announced 50,000 tonne per annum magnesium metal plant in South Carolina, a powerful vote of confidence in its patented, low-cost, low-emission technology.
Whilst it’s a promising start, the letter is conditional on Latrobe receiving US$15 million of financing from another specified US-based confidential entity, in addition to carrying out further due diligence and receiving the necessary approvals.
The counterparty providing the LoS is described as a large US-based financial institution that invests alongside its clients across the US and the Asia Pacific, with established relations with various US Government entities - how mysterious.
The news followed an announcement earlier in the week that Latrobe had identified a preferred site in South Carolina for its Victorian-developed process and is in advanced negotiations to lock it down.
For Latrobe, a USA-based commercial project represents what management calls its most strategically important, fastest and most capital-efficient path to commercial magnesium production - Blast those expensive Victorian energy prices.
The project will combine the company’s patented hydromet-thermal reduction process, which is currently being refined at its stage one demonstration plant in Victoria.
Management says it isn’t short on potential customers either, having already signed Letters of Intent for 32,000 tonnes per annum of committed demand from US consumers and traders, with substantial backing from the State of South Carolina.
Latrobe has also secured feedstock for the new facility through a binding 20-year ferronickel slag agreement with Société Le Nickel, a subsidiary of French mining giant Eramet. The proposed facility is aimed squarely at helping meet the United States’ strategic needs for magnesium, a metal vital for the defence, aerospace, automotive and aluminium industries.
CURVEBEAM AI LTD (ASX: CVB)
Up 100% (2c – 4c)
Nabbing the runner-up spot is CurveBeam AI, which surged this week after unlocking FDA 510(k) clearance for its CT-based Bone Mineral Density (BMD) technology. The clearance applies to its technology when used with multidetector CT supine, or lying-down, scans.
The company says the clearance represents a crucial regulatory milestone in the company’s AI-driven strategy to expand its advanced CT imaging capabilities into quantitative bone-health assessment.
The positive approval also lands immediately after an oversubscribed shortfall offer from a share purchase plan (SPP), with excess demand delivering an additional $1.75 million in funding on top of an already committed $5 million placement and $610,000 SPP. This brings the total amount raised across the full round to $7.36 million.
With its saddlebags now full, CurveBeam aims to develop its broader CT-based platform that can deliver anatomical, alignment and bone-quality information from a single examination.
The plan is to generate additional revenue through a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model once the company achieves clearance for its HiRise system - a weight-bearing CT scanner, meaning it can image joints under load rather than when patients lie flat.
A large portion of the fresh cash has been earmarked to commercialise HiRise in China, covering sales and marketing preparation, R&D enhancements, and supply chain build-out. Management sees China as a large, addressable market with limited direct competition.
Access to conventional bone density assessment can involve considerable delays, with CurveBeam now intent on pursuing even further FDA clearances to extend its technology offering to BMD measurement for HiRise, paving the way for its imminent revenue launch.
ARROW MINERALS LTD (ASX: AMD)
Up 79% (1.4c – 2.5c)
Taking out bronze this week is Pilbara iron ore hopeful Arrow Minerals, after it lodged a first-in-time application for another highly prospective iron ore tenement – and this one sits right on the doorstep of Rio Tinto’s world-class Robe River joint venture operations.
The company says its new tenement adjoins Arrow’s existing Yarraloola ground and comes within just 2km of the large-scale open-pit operations forming part of the Robe Valley Mesa A mining hub for Rio.
The Robe River JV has been operating in the region since the early 1970’s and today produces around 20-23 million tonnes of iron ore per annum, squaring the minuscule Arrow right in the thick of a major Pilbara mining address.
The new application also expands Arrow’s prospective Pilbara landholding by around 30 per cent to 415 square kilometres, giving the company an even bigger footprint in the world’s greatest iron ore province. And there’s serious pedigree behind the push.
Arrow is headed by David Flanagan, the founder and former managing director of Atlas Iron. Atlas was the Pilbara iron ore company ultimately acquired by Hancock Prospecting in 2018 after a bidding battle that also involved Mineral Resources and Fortescue, with Hancock’s offer ultimately increased to around $450 million. Flanagan isn’t simply another junior explorer talking up the Pilbara; he has already built and exported iron ore from the region, giving Arrow’s renewed focus on direct shipping ore (DSO) a little more bite.
The move comes hot on the heels of Arrow agreeing in August to acquire a 70 per cent interest in a direct shipping-grade iron ore project from Voyage Minerals. That project sits across the same broader Yarraloola district, less than 15km from the Robe River JV’s 65-million-tonne-per-annum operations, where previous explorers have identified direct shipping grade mineralisation at surface.
The really appealing bit is the geology. Previous work identified a more than 2km-long and 250m-wide Channel Iron Deposit target, dubbed the “BBQ Valley CID target”, with the mineralised unit remaining concealed by cover in both directions.
For Arrow, it is the chance to stitch together a sizeable iron ore position immediately alongside one of the Pilbara’s proven production engines - with a management team that has already been around the block when it comes to turning Pilbara iron ore into hard cash.
SULTAN RESOURCES (ASX: SLZ)
Up 63% (0.8c to 1.3c)
Sultan Resources went for a late run on Friday to round out our Runners, with the company revealing a sweeping portfolio overhaul for exploration, giving the junior exposure to a trio of gold and copper plays across Namibia and Western Australia.
Sultan has agreed to acquire a package of three projects, headlined by a 152-square-kilometre gold project in Namibia’s highly prospective Damara Gold Belt. The project sits immediately east of ASX-listed WIA Gold’s massive 3.78-million-ounce Kokoseb gold project, putting Sultan in some highly proven gold territory.
WIA’s numbers provide plenty of context for why investors might be taking a second look at the postcode. WIA built its Kokoseb resource at a discovery cost of less than US$3 per ounce of contained gold - an extraordinarily low exploration cost that highlights just how much mineralisation the region can potentially deliver without requiring explorers to burn a fortune getting there.
Sultan’s ground also carries some useful geological similarities to the neighbouring acreage once held by Osino Resources. Osino’s Namibian assets attracted the attention of major international capital and ultimately resulted in Shanjin International Gold acquiring the company for a bargain $400 million in 2024.
The company is also chasing the emerging Central Damara copper-gold province, with its application for 171.2 square kilometres of highly prospective ground at Kaalkop, roughly 270km from the capital Windhoek.
Copper exploration in Namibia is heating up rapidly, with recently listed junior Kaoko Metals already surging more than 1250 per cent since hitting the boards in May, following a copper-silver discovery.
The acquisition also brings two Australian critical-minerals projects into the fold - the Niobe rubidium-lithium project and Narndee polymetallic project in Western Australia - giving Sultan exposure to a broader suite of commodities. With gold and copper both heating up across Namibia, Sultan has planted its flag in two emerging provinces and now has plenty of ground to give a good shake.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Andrew Todd
