Resources wrap: Stop … hammer time for MC Mining after cash offer; Goldie Strickland spins drills
Embattled ASX coking coal producer MC Mining is up 50 per cent after two of its largest shareholders launched a takeover bid. Here’s your resources wrap.
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Smallish South African coking coal producer MC Mining (ASX:MCM) is up big time on Friday, on the back of a takeover offer from two of the company’s largest shareholders – Senosi Group Investment Holdings and Dendocept.
The two are acting together in a consortium effort on behalf of a group of shareholders and associates.
It’s an off-market cash takeover offer for all MCM shares not currently held by the consortium. That means it is trying to reel in about 64.5 per cent of the shares.
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Following receipt of the bid via letter, MCM has set up an independent board committee to consider the offer on behalf of shareholders not associated with the consortium “and to seek to evaluate and improve the indicative offer price”.
The board has also urged shareholders to “take no action” at this time.
MC Mining’s flagship asset is the Makhado metallurgical and thermal coal project, in South Africa’s Limpopo province.
The company had a rough FY22, posting a $20.8 million loss after tax thanks to civil unrest, lower production, and increased input costs. So far this year, it’s not faring fantastically, either, currently down 34 per cent.
Perhaps this takeover bid can prove to be some sort of king-making deal if terms can be agreed.
The market is certainly hopeful, with MCM’s share price up by 50 per cent for the day at 3pm Friday (AEDT).
Other resources stocks in the news
STRICKLAND METALS (ASX:STK)
About a week ago this prominent goldie told Stockhead it could well be on the tail of a large, concealed gold deposit at its high-grade Yandal gold project in WA.
Well, on Friday it has delivered a related update, specifically regarding the Horse Well prospect within Yandal, which the company notes represents a significant, deeper step in its exploration efforts.
The company has now started diamond drilling to test what it believes could be a concealed gold deposit – dubbed Marwari.
Hole MWDD001 was completed on Thursday, extending a further 111m from initial planned depth, Strickland revealed.
The company’s RC and diamond rigs will now focus solely on Marwari for the immediate future and a further four diamond holes are on the drilling schedule.
The company discovered Marwari last month as part of an extensive aircore drilling blitz designed to systematically explore for gold in new areas – including the Horse Well project – that it had acquired in July 2021, to consolidate the entire NE flank of the prolific Yandal Greenstone belt.
Marwari first turned up in aircore hole HWAC1472, which returned a spectacular 31m intersection grading 5.6g per tonne (g/t) gold from a down-hole depth of 72m.
The market loved Strickland’s update, with STK’s share price up nearly 41 per cent at 3pm Friday.
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NAGAMBIE RESOURCES (ASX:NAG)
You know how you get that sinking feeling when you’ve lost your wallet or phone or keys, but then you find them shortly after and life suddenly seems wonderful?
The analogy might be a step too far, but we do know that Nagambie shareholders would been in a decent mood after NAG came off a trading halt, to be 45 per cent up for the day at 3pm Friday (AEDT).
What gives? It was slapped on the wrist by the ASX the other day for failing to lodge its annual report on time. Perhaps the dog ate the original.
Said report has now been submitted and everything’s hunky dory again with the good folks at the bourse.
Earlier this month, NAG noted that the average stope grade at its 100 per cent-owned namesake antimony-gold mine in Victoria was 5.6 per cent Sb, making the discovery “the highest-grade antimony mineralisation in Australia”.
Nagambie Resources is in the thick of a renewed Vic gold hunt and its Nagambie mine is some 40km from the Costerfield antimony-gold mine owned by Canada’s Mandalay Resources ($C183.8 million).
PANTORO (ASX:PNR)
Australian gold producer Pantoro, like so many goldies of late, is up after announcing month-on-month production figures at its 100 per cent owned Norseman gold project continued to move in the right direction in October.
Earlier this month, Stockhead’s Josh Chiat wrote that the gold miner had enjoyed a share price bump in the September quarter as it announced a 27 per cent increase in production at Norseman (in WA’s Eastern Goldfields) to 13,168oz, up from 10,345oz in the June quarter.
Now the company notes October’s 2023 estimated gold production has increased by 16 per cent from the 5325 ounces recovered during September to 6186 ounces in October.
Across October about 90,200 tonnes was milled at a grade of 2.30 g/t of gold, despite a planned mill shut, with the mill operating at rates of up to 150 wet tonnes per hour.
Pantoro also says open pit ore availability has improved substantially since the high grade Scotia pit advanced past the historical pit floor.
High grade and medium grade ore stocks of roughly 50,000 tonnes over 1.9 g/t gold are available for haulage to the processing plant at the end of this month.
In addition to open pit stocks, there are about 16,000 tonnes of current mill ROM (run of mine) stocks available for processing.
MD Paul Cmrlec said: “Mining operations at both the OK mine and the Scotia open pit continue to improve as the operation matures,” said MD Paul Cmrlec.
“It is pleasing to see ore volumes and grades increasing at Scotia as expected with depth, and the OK mine continues to impress with very high grade zones often exceeding expectation.”
At 3pm Friday (AEDT), Pantoro was up 25 per cent for the day.
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LARVOTTO RESOURCES (ASX:LRV)
Junior gold, copper and base metals hunter Larvotto has been turning a few heads lately and was up a good 20 per cent on Fridcay morning thanks to “encouraging results from drilling at Eyre’s Ni Li project”.
It was still up by 16 per cent at 3pm.
LRV says the drills have been spinning for lithium, nickel and PGEs on the Mt Norcott and Merivale prospects within the broader Eyre project – which, by the way, is only about 30km to the east of the Norseman gold project (see PNR, above).
That’s some 2383m worth of RC drilling, with the following highlight: hole MNRC003: 100m at 675ppm Ni including 4m at 0.178 per cent Ni and 913ppm Cu.
Results from a 24-hole RC drill program for 2,383m have been received for at our Eyre Project in Western Australia.
— Larvotto Resources (@LarvottoR) November 2, 2023
Highlights include:
- Ni/Cu anomalism at Mt Norcott
- Thick pegmatites & nickel anomalism intersected at Merivale Prospect
Read: https://t.co/T88NdBECHe$LRVpic.twitter.com/mGguKxpRcT
The company also says thick pegmatites have been intersected at the Merivale prospect with not-unexpected results for lithium. And it’s talking multiple swarms of pegmatites, too, while “ultramafic nickel anomalism” has been hit on the western side.
MD Ron Heeks said: “We are encouraged by the results from the recent RC drilling at our Eyre Project. Several commodities were targeted, and all showed anomalous results from our first pass RC drilling that will require follow up.”
This content first appeared on stockhead.com.au
Although Strickland Metals is a Stockhead advertiser, it did not sponsor this article.
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Originally published as Resources wrap: Stop … hammer time for MC Mining after cash offer; Goldie Strickland spins drills
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