Gold! Gold! Gold!
No, that is not a throwback to the late, great Norman “Nugget” May’s famous line calling the thrilling final lap in the men’s 4x100m relay at the 1980 Moscow Olympics, where Australia edged out the all-powerful Soviet Union to win the coveted gold medals. Nor am I late with my summary of Australia’s performance at the recent Olympics and Paralympic Games in Paris.
I am, in fact, referring to this week’s batch of Bulls N’ Bears Runners of the Week and the market’s embrace for all good things gold ... with a touch of silver and, ahem, antimony – again – which let’s remember is commonly found in association with gold.
So, onto this week’s runners and our podium-topper for this week, BPM Minerals.
After going into a trading halt on Monday, the company’s shares ran like a scalded cat after it revealed to the market on Wednesday morning an impressive gold hit of 30m at 1.84 grams per tonne from 25m including a high-grade slice of 5m running 7.12g/t from 35m.
The assay results come from drilling at the company’s Louie prospect, which is part of its wider Claw gold project in Western Australia’s Mid West region and sits immediately south of and along strike from the $2.2 billion ASX-listed gold producer Capricorn Metals’ 3.24 million-ounce Mount Gibson gold project.
Mount Gibson is set to become one of WA’s next big gold mines, with plans from Capricorn to produce about 150,000 ounces per annum. BPM’s proximity to the project appears to be what provided the excitement factor in the market as the company is now ideally-positioned to undertake further exploration within a proven gold corridor.
A phase-one drill program earlier this year identified a 1km-long stretch with 100 parts per billion gold anomalies in the regolith at the site, which is believed to share similar geological characteristics to the mineralisation found to the north at Mount Gibson.
BPM’s shares, which occasionally do not trade at all, or trade less than 5000 units on a given day, closed at 5c on Monday before surging on Wednesday’s announcement to open at 11c, before leaping to a 14.5c high on huge volume of 23.2 million shares swapping hands. That provided a sweet gain of almost 196 per cent for the week.
Management says assays are still pending from six air-core (AC) holes that targeted the down-dip extent of the regolith gold anomalies, so perhaps there is another leg-up awaiting BPM.
Grabbing second place this week is Octava Minerals, which was boosted by seemingly everyone’s current favourite metallic rascal, antimony.
Hints of antimony are causing share prices to run ridiculously hard, pumping up the stock of any company that has revealed even a sniff of the grey metal ever since China announced the export controls on the valuable mineral that kicked into place on Monday.
The Shanghai Metals Market site lists antimony ingots grading 99.65 per cent to be trading in a price range of between US$25,000 and US$25,500 per tonne, more than doubling the metal’s price since the start of the year.
Octava was this week’s beneficiary from antimony-mania, unearthing historical drill intercepts that prove the existence of the metal on its ground.
The company disclosed on Tuesday that drilling conducted in 2015 and 2016 at the company’s Discovery prospect, part of its Yallalong project that sits some 220km to the north-east of the WA port town of Geraldton, returned several solid numbers including 3m at 6.83 per cent antimony from 21m with 1m at a tasty 13.6 per cent from 22m. Further hits show 7m going 3.27 per cent antimony from 12m that included 1m at 11.5 per cent from 18m and a stretch of 6m at 1.35 per cent from 13m.
Octava added that the high-grade mineralisation remains open in several directions, with previous drilling only focusing on shallow oxide material. Management says an earlier soil and rock-chip program identified a 10km north-to-south mineralised corridor that included one quartz vein sample assaying an insane 60.1 per cent antimony.
It further boosted the excitement of punters, who piled into the shares to propel it to a high of 14c for a stellar gain of 180 per cent for the week.
The company’s highest trading volume within the past year was on January 25 when just under 423,000 shares changed hands, so volumes of 24 million on Tuesday and 4.3 million on Wednesday were crazy numbers for the thinly-traded stock.
Octava now plans to define a mineral resource at the site and says a program-of-works (PoW) has been submitted, so the company may be worth keeping an eye on.
Mithril Silver and Gold has taken out third place after it surged this morning on news of stunning gold and silver grades at its Copalquin District project in Mexico.
The company’s run started on Monday when it announced that a LIDAR survey, which provides high-resolution aerial photography and uses light to measure distances from objects, revealed an array of hidden treasures at the project.
The high-tech method virtually strips away vegetation, clearly showing geological features and structural detail that lies beneath. An Aladdin’s cave of mine shafts, mine tunnels and historic mine-prospecting pits were discovered using the incredible technology.
Mithril’s shares opened at 14c before hitting an intra-day high of 20c and closed near its high at 19c on its biggest daily volume since May, with 4.2 million units swapping hands. But that was only the beginning for what lay ahead as it continued to nudge higher, hitting 22.5c on Wednesday on volume of 3.47 million shares in anticipation of expected assay results.
Mithril then announced this morning the assays from its recent drilling at the project and it really ramped things up with hits of 33m at 31.8g/t gold and 274g/t silver from surface. The thick intersection included a coffee-spitting 7m running 144g/t gold and 1162g/t silver from 18m.
And if you like your intersections thick and short, it included a 2m super-slice going 495g/t gold and 3765g/t silver.
Volumes for Mithril’s shares today surged to their highest level in almost 12 months, hitting some 18 million units and sending the price riding in the back of a Formula 1 Ferrari to 34c. A 172 per cent return for the week is better than a “poke in the eye with a blunt stick”, as one of my former associates used to say.
Missing out on a podium finish, but still returning a solid 94.44 per cent for the week is Metal Hawk. The company has completed an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) drone survey across its 100 per cent-owned Leinster South project that includes its prospective Siberian Tiger gold prospect.
Metal Hawk is using the geophysical data, which interestingly includes LIDAR data, along with new rock-chip assays that have been received, to assist with drill-targeting for its upcoming maiden program at the site. Management says the assay results extend the surface footprint and strike potential at the prospect area.
Previous rock-chip results grading from 0.76g/t gold up to 20.2g/t from four quartz vein samples were subjected to verification sampling. The results demonstrated good grade repeatability, with the duplicate samples returning 1.12g/t gold up to 30.87g/t.
The company says a second round of sampling and mapping has provided further drill targets and it is eagerly awaiting an additional 177 chip samples that have been submitted for analysis.
The Leinster South project sits 15km from the long-running Agnew-Lawlers mine that is now owned by South African giant Gold Fields, with the Siberian Tiger discovery based on the eastern limb of the Lawlers anticline. Past production from the mine totals more than 5 million ounces of gold at 5g/t.
Those factors contributed to the company’s shares running from Friday’s close of 9c to hit a high of 17.5c on Thursday, on bigger than normal volumes. Assays from the outstanding samples may now prove to be an interesting pointer to the company’s near-term performance.
The market is presently back in love with gold – and antimony – and it will be interesting to see what the next metal will be to grab’s the market’s full attention.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Craig Nolan
