Sometimes – but not always – getting into bed with the big dogs of mining can lead to a share price rise other companies can only dream about.
But it was not only Buxton Resources’ burgeoning union with mining giant IGO that made ASX investors sit up and take notice of the company in 2023, it did plenty of its own punching at its 100 per cent-owned Graphite Bull project in Western Australia’s rugged Gascoyne region.
Buxton made a blistering start to last year, with its share price up 169 per cent from 10.2 cents in early January to peak at 27.5c late in February on the back of some graphite drill hits.
Graphite Bull had caught the attention of investors with metallurgy news quoting graphite concentrate grades at 98.1 per cent total graphitic carbon (TGC), which was achieved through simple and conventional flotation processing. For reference, the commercial market prefers grades greater than 95 percent TCG.
That news broke the company’s share price out of a trading range of about 9c to 12c that had been maintained for the previous four months, with it rising to reach 15.5c on January 24.
By the start of February, Buxton’s share price had receded slightly as the company took aim at Graphite Bull, which sits in an area about 200km east of Shark Bay and had not seen the drill bit since 2014.
On February 7, management revealed ground electromagnetic results that suggested the potential for significant additional graphite resources along strike and at depth from the 2014 resource shell – which contains 4 million tonnes at 16.2 per cent TGC.
That resource takes up about 93,500 square metres and the electromagnetic data suggested mineralisation extended to make up a massive 2.14 million sq m. Subsequently, investors pushed the company’s share price up to touch 20c.
The next major share price move came on February 22, when the company made the late morning announcement of results from a five-hole scout drilling program targeting the electromagnetic conductors at Graphite Bull. It suggested the project was a much bigger mineralised system than previously thought.
Buxton said the program confirmed that multiple, substantial zones of graphite mineralisation extend for at least the 1880m of strike length at the project to depths of about 200m. Savvy investors soon realised that the 2014 resource was attributed to just 460m of strike.
The company’s share price immediately shot to 25c before climbing to further to 27.5c the following day.
As the year progressed, Buxton continued to mature Graphite Bull with more drilling, convinced the project was demonstrating outstanding graphite enrichment. Metallurgy results throughout the second half of the year were also supportive, showing excellent early downstream test results from ProGraphite in Germany, supporting Graphite Bull’s emergence as one of Australia’s premier graphite deposits.
Now, back to the IGO alliance and another share price run later in the year.
On September 6, Buxton lit up the ASX boards on news from the Copper Wolf project it shares with IGO in Arizona. It exited a trading halt with revelations of a 626m-thick copper-molybdenum drill intersection visually identified in core. Conveniently, the cost of the drilling program was being handled by the company’s more renowned joint venture (JV) partner.
The earn-in and JV agreement had been set in August the previous year, with IGO getting an exclusive option to earn a 51 per cent interest in the tenements by incurring and sole-funding $350,000 of exploration expenditure in a 24-month period that started on October 4, 2022.
The September news saw Buxton’s share price rise to hit an intra-day high of 23c, but there was still another little climb to come – this time relating to work done back home in WA.
The company revealed on October 4 that it had drilled through about 6.5m of massive sulphides from 179m within a 14.7m-thick zone of mineralisation from 176m in its first hole at its Dogleg nickel-copper-cobalt prospect in the west Kimberley. Investors jumped aboard and sent Buxton’s share price skyward to an intra-day high of 26c.
The 52-week high of 28.5c was then reached on November 6 when the company announced assay results from the same Dogleg hole, which confirmed the visual estimates of mineralisation. Those assays went as high as 13.24m at 4.35 per cent nickel, 0.34 per cent copper and 0.15 per cent cobalt from 177.34m, including a 5.6m thick chunk grading 7.47 per cent nickel, 0.31 per cent copper, 0.25 per cent cobalt from 179.08m.
Management says Copper Wolf has a rich mining history dating back to the late 1800s and it sits in one of the most prolifically-endowed copper belts in the world. But it has not seen any drilling since the early 1990s.
So, with a multi-pronged, multi-commodity exploration program spanning from Australia to Arizona, Buxton is still drilling holes to mature its subsurface models. And Graphite Bull seems to be matured to a point where a mineral resource review is within reach.
The latest news out of the project was on October 23 last year when the company advised the market of results from a ground electromagnetic survey that provided higher resolution of targets. Management says the survey shows anomalies coincident with drill hits for graphite and new targets interpreted as shallow graphite resources.
The resource definition drilling program at Graphite Bull is now advancing ahead of a review of the 2014 mineral resource estimate.
It was clearly an interesting 2023 overall for Buxton, with graphite causing an early-year share price spike and then copper drill hits re-energising the stock in the final quarter.
The company will no doubt now be getting set to put its shoulder back to the wheel in 2024. Its share price closed today at 15.5c.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Andrew Duffy
