Pic: Hans Neleman, The Image Bank, Via Getty Images
Mining
Here are the biggest small cap resources winners in morning trade, Wednesday October 12.
GME will raise $4m via placement to go towards a definitive feasibility study (DFS) (the most advanced of all project studies) on the NiWest nickel-cobalt project in WA.
The placement was done at 9.5c per share, a 14.7% discount to the 5-day volume weighted average price of 11.1c to 7 October 2022.
NiWest — next door to the largest nickel-cobalt operation in Australia, Glencore’s Murrin Murrin — will produce ~90,000 tonnes per annum of battery grade nickel and cobalt sulphate for the burgeoning electric vehicle market.
So far, more than $30m has been invested into drilling, metallurgical test work and development studies.
The placement follows a non-binding MOU announced Monday with global #5 carmaker Stellantis for future offtake.
Stellantis has ambitious EV targets and needs all the battery raw materials it can get. By 2030, it expects 100% of all passenger car sales into Europe will be EVs, while in the US EVs will account for 50% of sales.
“Securing the raw material sources and battery supply will strengthen Stellantis’ value chain for electric vehicle battery production and equally important, help the company achieve its aggressive decarbonization target,” Stellantis chief purchasing and supply chain officer Maxime Picat says.
Stellantis has also signed offtake agreements with advanced lithium play Vulcan Energy (ASX:VUL).
$80m market cap GME is up 130% year-to-date.
Meanwhile, QPM will ink a long term collab deal with another top carmaker in General Motors, which includes a material $108m investment and long-term offtake agreement.
As part of the initial investment, GM will subscribe for $31m worth of shares in QPM at 18c per share — a premium of 20% to the last closing price.
GM can also purchase all uncommitted nickel and cobalt sulphate produced in the first 15 years of Phase 1 of QPM’s flagship TECH Project in QLD, being 6,000tpa nickel and 800tpa cobalt.
The remainder is already accounted for under deals with POSCO (3,000tpa nickel, 300tpa cobalt) and LGES (7,000tpa nickel, 700tpa cobalt).
GM then has the option to purchase 100% of nickel and cobalt sulphate under a Phase 2 expansion.
“The collaboration with Queensland Pacific Metals will provide GM with a secure, cost-competitive and long-term supply of nickel and cobalt from a free-trade agreement partner to help support our fast-growing EV production needs,” says Jeff Morrison, GM’s vice president of global purchasing and supply chains.
A project Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS) remains on track for completion before the end of the year.
$275m market cap QPM is flat year-to-date.
(Up on no news)
The ambitious high grade iron ore project developer is also trying to build a mammoth multi-use port called Cape Hardy.
IRD now says it has received strong interest from multiple North Asian groups who want to use Cape Hardy as a long-term, large-scale green hydrogen/green ammonia export gateway for South Australia.
In September, the Cape Hardy green hydrogen Expression of Interest (EoI) process opened.
Fourteen domestic and international green hydrogen proponents are expected to participate, an increase from the 10 parties that confirmed commercial interest via a well-received market sounding process that concluded in July 2022, the company says.
The EoI will close soon, sometime during Q4 2022.
$130m market cap IRD is down 20% year-to-date.
There’s lithium in those Mt Alexander nickel tenements in WA, says SGQ, which has picked up rock chips grading up to 2.7% li.
These high-grade lithium results occur within several stacked pegmatite dykes in a north-south zone up to 1.7km long and 1.4km wide, named the Jailbreak prospect.
Field mapping is continuing at Jailbreak where multiple pegmatite outcrops with visual lithium-bearing minerals are now identified up to 1km west of current assay results.
Jailbreak is part of a wider 15km north-south LCT corridor within the project area.
Maiden lithium drilling is scheduled to commence in late October/early November, SGQ says.
“The grades and scale we are seeing appears to confirm that we are exploring a highly prospective pegmatite hosted lithium mineral system in its early stage of evaluation,” company exec chair John Prineas says.
“Our lithium bearing pegmatites are located in the same corridor parallel to the Copperfield Granite where Red Dirt Metals (ASX:RDT) has announced significant lithium discoveries and flagged a pending maiden mineral resource.
“Zenith Minerals (ASX:ZNC) has also announced on 11 October 2022 the commencement of drilling of prospective pegmatites at its Mt Ida North Lithium Project, northeast of our lithium-bearing pegmatites.
Further north of Mt Alexander, and also adjacent to the craton scale Mt Ida fault, is Liontown’s (ASX:LTR) large Kathleen Valley lithium deposit which has a mineral resource of 156Mt @ 1.4% Li2O and 130ppm Ta2O5.
“We are in a very good address and look forward to commencing our maiden lithium drill program later this quarter,” Prineas says.
The $36m market cap stock is down 27% year-to-date.
(Up on no news)
REC rerated heavily in March after hitting 300m of copper mineralisation in drilling at the flagship ‘Brandy Hill South’ project in WA.
But assays failed to live up to initial hype, and the share price has since retreated from those heady highs.
But drilling continues; a new program includes five diamond holes to be completed on high order DHTEM targets and RC drillholes designed to test anomalous copper results from historic aircore drilling programs.
Mining
Mining
Mining
Get the latest Stockhead news delivered free to your inbox.
