Coking coal elbows antimony sideways to take centre stage

Antimony..antimony..antimony..

It’s been all the rage again this week, with seemingly every second junior mining company having a project that either contains the in-demand metal or is prospective for tonnes and tonnes of the wonderous alloy metal.

It may come as a surprise then to hear that the biggest mover this past five days on Bulls N’ Bears Runners of the Week is not an antimony-focused explorer-developer, but rather a company that produces….coking coal of all things.

It appears rumours of coal’s demise may be premature as the market took its eye of “everything” antimony, to see value in the old-stager coal.

Yes, good-old fashioned metallurgical coal used to produce quality coke, an essential fuel and reactant in the blast furnace process for making the world’s most used construction metal…steel.

MC Mining surged to the top of the podium in this week’s Runners list after the US$1.2 billion, Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKSE) listed thermal coal producer, Kinetic Development Group (KDG), revealed it will pay US$90 million (AU$132 million) at a massive premium above MC Mining’s previous closing price to take a post-transaction 51 per cent controlling-interest in the issued capital of the South African-focused coking coal producer.

The terms of the deal that sent market punters scampering for stock is KDG will initially stump-up US$12.97 million (AU$19.02 million) at an implied price per share of US$0.2089 (AU$0.3083) for the first tranche payment.

The extraordinary near 31c offer, when priced in Australian currency, translates to a phenomenal premium of about 730 per cent above the previous closing price of 3.7c on August 23, prior to the company entering a trading halt pending the announcement.

KDG’s plan is to focus its expansion in hard coking-coal production for the steel industry to bolster its overall coal business. The funds will be principally used to transition MC Mining’s flagship project, the Makhado hard coking-coal project into production while at the same time the company has also earmarked the development of several other coal projects in the company’s existing portfolio.

Whatever the plan may be, market punters loved the news and sent the shares soaring skyward to touch an 18-month high of 24c.

That made for an impressive 549 per cent gain for the week - which is only about 100x what your bank will give you in interest over a year.

Almost 6.5 million shares changed hands on Thursday which appears to be a record for the long established coal producer and about a 50-fold increase on recent average daily volumes.

A second -tranche payment of US$77.03 million (AU$112.97 million) will take place within seven business days of the fulfillment of all regulatory approvals, outstanding conditions and shareholder approval at an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM).

Flipping from coal production and corporate actions to the world of medical research, silver-placed Actinogen Medical has endured somewhat of a roller-coaster ride recently. The company was initially getting belted when a skittish market appeared to “jump at shadows” on news less than perfect, reacting negatively to its latest phase-2a trial results for its promising drug Xanamem.

The trial results showed Xanamem produced statistically significant outcomes compared to placebo, however it failed to meet its primary endpoint of improving the cognition “Attention Composite”, measured by a series of Cogstate computerised tests.

Cogstate has developed industry-accepted digital testing to measure brain health and related cognitive conditions.

However, things turned on their head again when the company revealed ongoing analysis of the trial data indicated a consistent benefit from Xanamem, effectively treating symptoms of depression based on a range of different endpoints. The data pointed to the conclusion that a 10mg daily-dose of Xanamem has a clinically significant anti-depressant action.

Punters who follow the small biotechnology sector jumped at the positive news, sending the company’s shares flying higher to 5.5c, a lift of 129.17 per cent compared to last Friday’s close.

A whopping 180 million shares swapped hands on Monday with more than 300 million traded for the week, as the market soaked up the new data showing there is plenty of life left in the possibilities of Actinogen’s flagship therapeutic.

Kalina Power takes the bronze this week after news of a non-binding memorandum-of-understanding (MOU) was executed with private company Crusoe Energy Systems, a firm valued at US$785 million that specialises in clean-energy-driven data centre development.

The agreement provides for AI-focused data centres utilising natural gas-fired power incorporating carbon capture and sequestration.

Kalina’s 100 per cent-owned Canadian subsidiary will work with Crusoe to negotiate a binding project-development-agreement (PDA) based on outlining commercial terms for each project facility developed between the two parties.

After Alberta’s Premier recently encouraged data centre developers to “bring your own electricity” and “partner with a generating company”, Kalina believes its low-emissions power projects are optimally-placed to meet the demand from data centres.

Market observers seemed to agree, sending its shares to 1.1c, the company’s highest traded price for 15 months, with volumes well above average. That made for a healthy gain of 120 per cent for the week.

The word around Alberta-town is the influx of data centres into the city could be worth as much as US$100 billion (AU$147 billion) so the market may be banking on a few more of these types of agreements putting a strong tailwind into Kalina’s wings.

Just missing out on the podium is..yes you guessed it..aspiring antimony developer Felix Gold. It reported “insane” past production grades of up to 58 per cent antimony, alongside re-assayed samples from its 2022 drill program where it previously only assayed for gold.

The new assays returned stellar grades with one 3m intersection running at 14.24 per cent antimony while another, 1.5m wide hit posted a 15.99 per cent grade.

The numbers were immediately latched onto by an antimony-crazed market, driving the share price to a high of 10.5c - a 102 per cent leap of faith that Felix could be sitting on oodles of the new-world metal.

In a further illustration of the hype around Felix Gold, the company also registered a record-beating 30 million shares changing hands on Wednesday.

The super high-grade antimony results from its Scrafford mine, part of the wider Treasure Creek project in Alaska, supplements the company’s existing 833,000 ounce gold resource at the site. With the gold price still bumping along close to all-time highs, and uber-high grade antimony thrown into the mix, it’s not a bad combination for Felix to be sitting on right now.

Whether the antimony buzz will bleed into next week, or another commodity will elbow its way into Runners – or perhaps even a marvellous medical breakthrough will be the ‘raison de célébrer’ – only time, and Runners will tell. 

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au