Resources Top 5: Leeuwin pivots to gold in Ramelius deal

Leeuwin climbs after acquiring the Marda project from Ramelius, while Iltani pops up with high-grade drill results at Orient.

Leeuwin Metals has acquired the Marda gold project in WA that has historical production. Pic: Getty Images

• Leeuwin Metals has plenty of targets to test at its newly acquired Marda gold project in WA

• Iltani Resources hits up to 2066g/t silver equivalent (AgEq) at Orient

• Black Dragon Gold, Wildcat Resources and Infini Resources up with significant volumes despite a lack of news today

Your standout small cap resources stocks for Friday, December 20, 2024.

LEEUWIN METALS (ASX:LM1)

Leading the pack is Leeuwin Metals which has signed a binding share sale agreement to acquire the Marda gold project in WA’s Goldfields region from Ramelius Resources (ASX:RMS).

Marda covers over 500km2 of granted mining, exploration, and prospecting leases about 120km north of Southern Cross.

It hosts eight open pits and numerous historical workings, proving that gold is certainly present.

There’s also plenty of exploration upside with high-grade drill intercepts including 3.6m at 16.4g/t gold at the Evanston prospect and 5m at 7.47g/t gold at Mt King as well as underexplored historical prospects.

Leeuwin is acquiring the project for an upfront consideration of $500,000 in its shares and will make milestone cash payments of $500,000 and $1m upon the definition of JORC-compliant resources of 500,000oz and 1Moz respectively.

BLACK DRAGON GOLD (ASX:BDG), WILDCAT RESOURCES (ASX:WC8) and INFINI RESOURCES (ASX:I88)

(Up on no news)

Black Dragon Gold is progressing development of its Salave gold project in northern Spain.

Salave currently has a measured resource of 1.03Mt at 5.59g/t, or 190,000oz of contained gold and an indicated resource of 7.18Mt at 4.43g/t, or 1.02Moz of contained gold.

Shares in the company have climbed steadily this week despite announcing early in December that the Tapia de Casariego Town Council has voted against the company’s application for re-zoning the Salave land use from agricultural to industrial.

Wildcat Resources climbed 9.76% with more than $1m worth of shares changing hands today.

At the end of November, the company outlined a resource of 74.1Mt grading 1% Li2O at its Tabba Tabba project in WA, making it Australia’s largest undeveloped publicly reported hard-rock spodumene resource.

This has a high level of confidence as 94% is contained within the indicated category that allows for mine planning.

There’s also potential for further growth with future targets identified.

Infini Resources’ plan to carry out maiden drilling at its Portland Creek uranium project was approved by the Newfoundland Mines Department in mid-December.

The program of up to 23 holes to test the high-grade Talus prospect will begin in late January 2025 with the mobilisation of the first heli-supported diamond rig to site. A second rig will be available from early February.

Core logging and downhole televiewer surveys will be conducted on each drill hole to collect lithological, structural, gamma, density and radiometric data.

Litho-structural interpretation from the expanded UAV magnetic survey is on schedule to be released prior to Christmas Day.

ILTANI RESOURCES (ASX:ILT)

Shares in Iltani Resources soared today after drilling at its Orient silver-indium project in northern Queensland returned further high-grade results topping up at 1m at 2066g/t silver equivalent (AgEq).

This peak intersection was returned from a downhole depth of 77m within a broader intersection of 4m at 921.8g/t AgEq (305.1g/t silver, 102.7g/t indium, 7.72% lead and 5.86% zinc) from 77m.

Intersections of high-grade silver-rich massive sulphide mineralisation have also been intersected in multiple drill holes with hole ORR050 drilled downdip of the high-grade mineralisation intersected in ORR041 and ORR042 extending the high-grade mineralisation after returning an assay of 11m at 122.7g/t AgEq.

Assays are also expected from the remaining five Orient East holes, a hole at Orient South and the first seven holes at Orient West.

Subject to receipt of assay results, the company expects to pencil in a conceptual exploration target for Orient East.

“Continuing to exceed our expectations, the latest set of drillholes from Orient East have delivered more thick zones of high-grade silver-lead-zinc-indium mineralisation at open pittable depths plus more exceptional silver-rich massive sulphide mineralisation,” managing director Donald Garner said.

Originally published as Resources Top 5: Leeuwin pivots to gold in Ramelius deal