Resources Top 5: Investors swarm over Mongolian copper-nickel discovery

Asian Battery Metals has soared on a new copper nickel discovery at the Yambat project in Mongolia. Read more in our resources wrap.

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• Asian Battery Metals uncovers a stunning copper-nickel discovery in Mongolia 

• James Bay Minerals wraps up 2024 field exploration at the La Grande lithium projects in Canada 

• Alara Resources improves the copper concentrate output at its Wash-Hi Majaza plant

Here are the biggest small cap resources winners in morning trade, Monday, October 28. 

Asian Battery Metals (ASX:AZ9)

After four years of systematic exploration in Mongolia, and with the help of BHP’s Xplor program in 2023, AZ9 has made what it has described as an "outstanding" copper-nickel discovery at the Oval prospect in the Gobi-Altai region.

Drill hole OVD021 hit a massive sulphide intersection of 8.8m at 6.08 per cent copper, 3.19 per cent nickel, 1.63g/t PGEs, 0.11 per cent cobalt from 107.2m in between high-grade zones of:

• 85m at 0.75 per cent copper, 0.78 per cent nickel, 0.15g/t 3E (PGEs), 0.04 per cent cobalt from 99.35m; and
• 8m at 1.36 per cent copper, 1 per cent nickel, 0.44g/t 3E, 0.04 per cent cobalt from 116m.

AZ9 said the most significant achievement of the drilling has been intercepting massive sulphides, which further confirms that the Oval magmatic sulphide system is rich and capable of forming high-grade ore.

“This is an exceptional result that shows the mineralisation system at Oval has potential for hosting a substantial deposit with a higher-grade zone of copper and nickel,” AZ9 managing director Gan-Ochir Zunduisuren said.

“Future exploration work at the Oval discovery will primarily focus on the extension of the high-grade zone to understand its size, true dip, and orientation.”

The journey of discovery will restart within two weeks at the Yambat project with more drilling planned.

This comes as mining companies scramble for copper supply on the back of constrained output growth due to high costs and depleting ore grade.

BHP, operators of the world's biggest copper mine in Chile, claims the average grade of copper mines has declined by around 40% since 1991 and expects between one-third and one-half of global copper supply to face grade decline and ageing challenges over the next decade.

Mongolia is famously the home of Rio Tinto's Oyu Tolgoi mine, which is on track to become a 500,000tpa producer via a major underground expansion.

Dateline Resources (ASX:DTR)

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A scoping study on DTR’s Colosseum gold project in San Bernardino Country, California outlined robust project outcomes last week, using a $US2200 per ounce gold price.

The production and development cases assessed were benchmarked against 16 projects with sufficient published information on capital costs and 38 projects for operating costs.

Although two cases were assessed, DTR is most likely to progress Case 2 to BFS, which focused only on open pit mining methods with a processing rate of 2Mtpa.

The project would mine 16.66Mt of ore grading 1.30g/t gold over an initial 8.4 year mine production life and is set to deliver $US398m free cashflow, IRR of 31 per cent and NPV of $US235m using a 6.5 per cent discount rate.

Total pre-production capital expenditure and working capital requirements would be $152.7m.

“The company will explore ways to further enhance the project economics and capital expenditure during the BFS stage,” DTR managing director Stephen Baghdadi said.

Colosseum sits just down the road in southern California’s Walker Lane Trend from multiple substantial discoveries including Equinox Gold’s 5.5Moz Castle Mountain gold mine.

Prodigy Gold (ASX:PRX)

PRX has been trending higher for the past couple of weeks following high-grade drill hits at the Hyperion gold deposit, part of the Tanami North project in the NT.

A stand-out strike of 10m at 15.9g/t gold has created a buzz among investors ahead of a planned resource upgrade and further drilling planned for the 2025 field season.

This comes as bullion, considered a hedge against geopolitical and economic uncertainties, reaches a new record of ~$4000/oz on the back of US election uncertainties and conflict in the Middle East.

Hyperion is in the highly prospective but under-explored area situated between the 1.1Moz Groundrush gold deposit and the 94,000oz Crusade gold deposit, both of which form part of the neighbouring Northern Star Resources (ASX:NST)/Tanami Gold NL (ASX:TAM) Central Tanami project.

PRX’s exploration team is awaiting results for the Tregony North, Brokenwood and Pandora drilling that was completed subsequent to drilling at Hyperion.

Other works that will be undertaken in the December quarter include the submission of metallurgical samples to the laboratory for testwork, a review of the higher-grade samples from the Hyperion drilling using the PhotonAssay technique and finally using these results to update the company’s resources.

James Bay Minerals (ASX:JBY)

JBY has wrapped up its 2024 summer field program which targeted high priority areas of the La Grande lithium projects, identified from previous aerial surveys and desktop studies.

The company said data generated from this program has enhanced the team’s understanding of the key geological features and will be used to guide upcoming field work.

Overall, a total of 193 samples were taken across the project, including rock chips and channel samples at key LCT pegmatite, rare earths and uranium targets which were generated from LiDAR, high-resolution photography, aeromagnetic and spectro magnetic surveys.

La Grande is situated within Canada’s James Bay region, one of only very few Tier-1 jurisdictions globally which display all three key ingredients to host large-scale LCT pegmatites.

JBY is in the fortunate position of holding one of the largest land positions of 41,572ha (415.72sq km) along the La Grande greenstone belt and has the largest holding along the premium La Grande lithium trend of ~55km east to west.

Alara Resources (ASX:AUQ)

AUQ has improved the copper concentrate output at its Wash-Hi Majaza plant in Oman with the sixth shipment now ready for dispatch.

A total of 186Mt copper metal and 5kg of gold was produced over the latest, two-week shipping cycle, compared to 124MT produced in the fourth, four-week cycle.

Specific process improvements included optimising reagent dosage and concentration in the floatation circuit and air flow rate modifications, resulting in increased copper liberation in the grinding circuit.

As a result, increased metal recovery of 8 to 10 per cent was obtained.

Feeding freshly mined ore with a higher copper grade to the plant was also a key factor in the improved production result, the company said.

This comprises the sixth parcel of copper-concentrate shipped from the mine and is ready to depart Sohar Port for China on  October 29.

While the company focused on operating the recently completed 1Mpta Al Wash-Hi Majaza copper and gold mine in Oman, AUQ is continuing with exploration activities at its other Omani projects.

At Stockhead we tell it like it is. While Prodigy Gold and James Bay Minerals are Stockhead advertisers, they did not sponsor this article. 

Originally published as Resources Top 5: Investors swarm over Mongolian copper-nickel discovery