At the Beijing Olympics in 2008, Australian track-and-field star Sally Pearson produced one of the finest performances of her career to take out second place in a photo finish in the 100m hurdles.
Known back then as Sally McLellan, she delivered one of the most heartfelt and breathless post-race interviews this columnist has ever seen. The result – and the interview – immediately propelled her to the attention of the media and the sporting world, especially considering the strength of the field that included American track superstars Lori “Lolo” Jones and Dawn Harper and Jamaican athlete Brigitte Foster-Hylton, who would become the world champion the following year.
It just goes to show the importance of snatching silver and what the result can ultimately do to attract the interest of those in the industry. At the 2012 Olympics in London, just four years after her second place in Beijing, Pearson won the gold and broke the competition record for the 100m hurdles, proving that claiming silver can sometimes lead to the ultimate success.
That is why this edition of Bulls N’ Bears Runners of the Week will start with a company that made a huge splash following its debut on the ASX last week with its exciting Maverick Springs project in Nevada, where it is chasing … you guessed it … silver.
Hitting the boards on Wednesday, Sun Silver leapt from an oversubscribed pre-launch raise price of just 20c per share to touch 65c this morning during intraday trading – a massive rise of 225 per cent.
Maverick Springs comes with a JORC-compliant mineral resource of 292 million ounces of silver equivalent at 72.4 grams per tonne, including 125.4 million tonnes at 43.5g/t silver and 0.34g/t gold for more than 175 million silver ounces and 1.37 million gold ounces in the inferred category.
And it sure grabbed the attention of the market. More than 18.5 million shares changed hands on the first day of trading, followed by almost 15.4 million yesterday and a further 11 million today.
Nevada was this week ranked as the second-best mining jurisdiction in the world by the Canadian-based Fraser Institute’s annual survey of mining companies, slipping from top spot in the previous poll last year. But in addition to its location, it could well be the resource itself that has launched Sun Silver skyward.
The company has highlighted that silver demand for use in solar panels has soared by 330 per cent since 2014, growing from 48 million ounces to 160 million ounces in 2023. The project also has plenty of exploration potential, with the current resource based on about 200 holes for 60,000m drilled to date – representing just 20 per cent of the company’s tenements.
Sun Silver’s rise appears to have dragged along several other silver explorers along for the wild ASX ride, with Eastern Metals, Iltani Resources and Lode Resources also enjoying a share price hike this week. Now, it might just be worth keeping an eye on Sun Silver to see if it can follow in Pearson’s highly-successful – and fast – footsteps.
Anyway, just like the Olympic judges in 2008, we found it difficult to split our top runners this week, with Errawarra Resources also enjoying a 225 per cent share price hike from a previous close of just 6c to touch 19.5c.
But, unapologetically, with the Paris Olympics looming large, the Pearson narrative was too good to pass up. And in any case, as her example proves, there is no shame in finishing second – regardless of American stock car racing driver Dale Earnhardt Jr’s premise that “second place is the first loser”.
Errawarra’s share price hike coincides with its discovery of a big 1.6km-by-1km stacked pegmatite swarm at its Andover West project in Western Australia’s Pilbara region. The swarm includes a highly-anomalous lithium soil trend peaking at 325 parts per million lithium oxide, in addition to a second north-west soil anomaly trend as high as 299ppm in the north-west area of the operation.
Importantly, both trends are along strike and just 1.7km from Raiden Resources’ lithium pegmatite discovery that recorded rock chip samples with assays as high as 3.8 per cent lithium oxide.
Management believes that it may have only hit the tip of the iceberg with these lithium fertile zones within the pegmatite packages and has highlighted the opportunity to explore for higher grades down dip at its 100-square-kilometre operation. The company expects a heritage clearance survey for Andover West to be completed this month, with planning already underway ahead of a proposed drill program that is expected to kick off this quarter.
The latest headlines for Errawarra follow it entering a joint venture (JV) with Alien Metals in respect to lithium rights at the Pinderi Hills project, also in the Pilbara. While not quite equalling Sun Silver’s trade movement, nearly 70 million Errawarra shares were traded last week.
Apart from the photo finish it is tough to tie this one into the Olympics dialogue. Maybe the International Olympic Committee could consider a lithium medal for the country that travelled to the event in the most electric cars? Just a thought…
This week’s bronze medal goes to New South Wales explorer Australian Gold and Copper, with a share price jump of 187.6 per cent from a previous close of 12c to touch 34.5c.
Follow-up drilling at its Achilles target – part of its greater Southern Cobar project – delivered a 5m intercept at 16.9g/t gold, 1473g/t silver and 15 per cent lead-zinc from just 112m including 3m reading 19g/t silver and 19.5 per lead-zinc from 139m. The assays fall within a mineralised zone that has reached maximum grades of 45g/t gold, at least 3000g/t silver and 38.8 per cent lead-zinc.
Management says the 3000g/t silver result is so high-grade that the laboratory in Australia is unable to properly analyse the sample and it is now being sent to Canada for further testing.
The company then tagged on an addendum to its results yesterday with a 4m hit grading 2.3g/t gold, 545g/t silver, 0.2 per cent copper and 2.9 per cent lead-zinc from 123m. Not bad figures, but the section also included 1m going a solid 7.4g/t gold, a massive 1975g/t silver, a very respectable 0.6 per cent copper and 5.1 per cent lead-zinc from 123m.
The recent relevance of silver has already been mentioned within this column, but both gold and copper are important for the medal presentations at the Olympics. Gold is obvious as the podium’s top dog, but copper makes up a significant part of bronze for those – like Australian Gold and Copper – claiming third place.
Just missing out on a podium finish this week is ASX-listed First AU, which enjoyed a share price jump of almost 167 per cent from a previous close of 0.3c to touch 0.8c. Late last week, the company was granted a lease to explore the historical King Cassilis mine by the Victorian Government, which previously produced more than 3000 gold ounces at a very nice grade of 14.4g/t.
Shares in the company enjoyed a respectable 50 per cent price hike following the announcement but then, as is sometimes the case around gold at the moment, the market went nuts.
More than 171 million shares changed hands on Monday, followed by a remarkable 241 million on Tuesday and 134 million during Wednesday’s intraday trading. Things calmed down a little on Thursday with a turnover of some 51.6 million shares, with last count today reaching nearly 34 million.
Last week, this column told explorers in the Eastern States to grab a shovel and start digging as there are plenty of historical works with solid previous production still capable of producing some decent figures with modern day exploration techniques.
It appears that First AU has taken this advice to heart and the market – unsurprisingly – has jumped on board.
While silver was a dominant theme last week as Paris prepares to host its third Olympic Games in the space of 124 years, it is clear that many market pundits and ASX-listed explorers are also keeping their eyes firmly on the ultimate prize on offer at the world’s premier sporting showcase – gold.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Michael Philipps
