Thanks a Million: These five ASX gold hopefuls are closing in on the 1Moz milestone
Are these the next million ounce gold explorers? Nordic Resources is on track to join the club in months if not weeks at its projects in Finland.
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Cracking a million ounces is a trigger for investors to sit up and take notice of a gold junior
Nordic Resources is on track to join the club soon at its Kopsa, Kiimala Trend and Hirsikangas projects in Finland's Middle Ostrobothnia gold belt
A number of other ASX juniors are also knocking on the door
For yonks the hurdle to be considered a serious development prospect in the ASX gold sector has sat in and around the 1Moz milestone.
Not only is it a clean, visually enticing number, the million ounce mark suggests a deposit with serious scale and development potential – portending a mine with the potential to do 100,000ozpa over a decade.
This isn't the sort of project that makes a few quick bucks to avoid dilution and keep the rigs turning.
It's the sort that can pull in a big-name suitor, score a rerate, fund real growth or bankroll a dividend, a true company maker.
Nordic Resources (ASX:NNL) could well be the next cab off the rank after pivoting from its sole focus on battery metals in northern Finland to the Middle Ostrobothnia belt in the south, where it now holds a dominant position in one of the country's most prolific yet underexplored gold domains.
Its flagship project is Kopsa, which contains a resource of 23.2Mt at 1.09g/t gold equivalent for 814,800oz on a gold equivalent basis, including 631,100oz of gold metal and a further 38,360t of copper.
At the nearby Agnesneva, part of the Kiimala Trend project, NNL recently tabled a gold-only resource of 3.85Mt at 1.19g/t for 147,000oz. All up that's 961,800oz in gold equivalent resources.
The next catalyst, to push NNL beyond the 1Moz milestone at its newly acquired assets, could come from two places.
Firstly, the Hirsikangas project, where a JORC 2012 compliant resource is yet to be tabled but where 11,400m of historic drilling including shallow intersections like 71.3m at 1.12g/t from 7.3m and 44.2m at 1.45g/t from 12.7m have has been completed.
Then, there is the rich potential of Kopsa itself, which almost certainly gets bigger from here with just 25,000m of drilling completed to date and NNL planning 4500m in its 2025 program.
"With (Hirsikangas), we're not simply validating what was done in the past, we're recreating it ourselves to make sure, because I think it's a lot bigger than what we thought it would be," NNL exec director Rob Wrixon said.
"Plus ... all that drilling is just clustered up in the northwest and the rest of that mag trend there's sporadic drilling.
"There's a lot of upside there. I was thinking we might get over 1Moz once we drill out Kopsa. I was pretty sure of that.
"But now I think Hirsikangas will get us over there, because it looks like it's hanging together quite well for a good resource."
Critical mass
When a deposit or cluster of deposits in close proximity hit the big million, the news tends to trigger a couple things.
Any rerate is significant because it has the potential to open up the register to a new class of investor, should a junior's share price rise in lockstep with its resource growth.
That brings more stable, long-term investors into the stock and, if the rerate is strong enough, index inclusion and passive investment flows.
"Being able to tick that box and say we've got over 1Moz in resource inventory is important," Wrixon said.
"I think for some investors, people who follow you, that's important as well."
For Nordic, it all revolves around processing options.
There are two operating mills in the area, one of them – Laiva – specifically designed to handle gold bearing ores.
Laiva is undergoing a sale process at the moment to CSE listed Edgemont Gold Corp, boosting the suddenly very competitive landscape in southern Finland's gold scene.
Hong Kong-listed Dragon Mining, which ships its gold concentrate to a plant in Sweden, is also active and facing a takeover bid led by well-known resources investor APAC Resources.
Kopsa and NNL's nearby Kiimala Trend and Hirsikangas projects could well become lynchpins of the broader Finnish gold scene.
Crossing the million ounce mark is a big deal not just for the sake of the number. It also places Kopsa and Nordic's potential satellite projects as the centrepiece of a likely standalone processing development.
"Position A is you get well over 1Moz at Kopsa alone and it justifies a standalone plant there, and if you want to process stuff from the – currently – smaller deposits ... you have a central processing plant which is yours," Wrixon said.
"You have optionality with other plants where you could get started earlier with toll treating.
"This is the beauty of this regional gold strategy. You don't necessarily need 2Moz at Kopsa.
"You can get to 1-1.5Moz at Kopsa and supplement it with 1Moz at the other two places as well, you have that resource base to be able to build a plant.
"1Moz is great for us and it'll be a great milestone. But it's really how it all comes together with the processing options."
That 1Moz-plus could go further in Finland than elsewhere. The region is blessed with cheap power – as little as 1c/KWh thanks to its mix of nuclear, renewables, coal and hydro. Skilled labour is cheaper than Australia as well, while the countries are connected by one of the world's most efficient road and rail networks.
"These countries have first world infrastructure but a very low cost base," Wrixon said.
Drilling is due to begin at Kopsa in July, with Kiimala Trend also expected to be the focus of the upcoming campaign.
Four more heading for 1Moz
A1G's Blaffo Guetto deposit in Côte d'Ivoire is now oh, so close to the magic million, with an update on Monday lifting its resource 119% to 989,000oz at 2.5g/t gold.
With a bit of creativity it has claimed the million ounce milestone at a lower cut-off grade.
But the official resource is close and likely to get bigger, with A1G sitting on plenty of cash after a recent investment from the Zijin and Lundin backed Montage Gold Corp.
It has $12m in cash and equivalents to support another round of resource extension drilling, with Blaffo Guetto so far only tested to a depth of around 300m.
Great Boulder Resources (ASX:GBR)
Has publicly declared its intention to chase not just 1Moz but 1.5Moz at its Side Well project on the doorstep of the town of Meekatharra in WA's Mid West.
Long regarded as a potential takeover target for Westgold Resources (ASX:WGX) given its proximity to the company's Bluebird plant, which is hungry and comes at a scale of 1.8Mtpa.
Side Well contains two discrete deposits. The largest, Mulga Bill, contains 568,000oz at 2.7g/t Au, and could lend itself to development as a large open pit.
The smaller but higher grade Ironbark contains 100,000oz at a grade of 3.3g/t. Mills owned by Meeka Metals (ASX:MEK) and TSX-listed Monument Mining are also well within trucking distance.
Technically its Independence gold project in Nevada, USA, is over 1Moz, though that includes a low grade near surface epithermal resource with oxide mineralisation that is being scoped as a heap leach.
The larger, longer life skarn hosted high-grade resource clocks in at 984,412oz at 6.67g/t Au.
Historic drill results 580m north of the skarn resource suggest similar high-grade mineralisation exists elsewhere on the site, which 550m of earth between the low grade surface resource and deep, high grade skarn deposit remains untested in the Lower Pumpernickel formation.
There is also unclassified mineralisation both at surface and depth which is yet to be included in the mineral resource estimate.
A scoping study is currently underway at the White Devil deposit near Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory, the discovery that has transformed Emmerson into a serious player.
The company has a processing and mining JV with London-listed Pan African Resources, which recently opened the Nobles processing plant.
While it garners a lucrative royalty on most of the deposits in the JV, White Devil contains 611,400oz, well beyond the 250,000oz mark defined as a major mining deposit under the terms of the Tennant Creek JV.
That means Emmerson could eventually claim a 40% contributing interest once the deposit is read to be mined. A scoping study is underway.
The growth of White Devil this year has taken Tennant Creek's resource base to 987,000oz, with 820,000oz added in the past 12 months alone.
Most of that is indicated, signalling a degree of confidence in the drilling that enables the resources to be placed into a mine plan and ore reserve.
At Stockhead, we tell it like it is. While Nordic Resources is a Stockhead advertiser, it did not sponsor this article.
Originally published as Thanks a Million: These five ASX gold hopefuls are closing in on the 1Moz milestone
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