Resources Top 5: Investors swoon as Scorpion’s golden arrow strikes

Scorpion Minerals is earning up to 70% in the Jungar Flats gold project that has promising historical gold intercepts close to its existing Pharos project.

Scorpion Minerals' new Jungar Flats project has historical gold intercepts. Pic: Getty Images

• Scorpion’s new Jungar Flats project has plenty of gold potential

• Hamelin Gold has found a gold anomaly at its Ularring project

• Australian Mines drilling intersects rare earths at Jequie in Brazil

Your standout small cap resources stocks for Friday, February 14, 2025.

Scorpion Minerals (ASX:SCN)

Scorpion has signed a binding farm-in and joint venture agreement to earn up to 70% in E79 Gold Mines' (ASX:E79) Jungar Flats gold project in WA’s Murchison region, becoming the largest tenement holder in a shear running from Spartan Resource's Dalgaranga to Westgold Resources' Big Bell in WA's Murchison.

The project is adjacent to the company’s existing Pharos project where it had discovered gold specimens over a large area near historical shallow gold workings at the Olivers Patch prospect and takes its total landholding in the region up to 1600km2.

Recent exploration success such at Spartan Resources' (ASX:SPR) Never Never and Caprice Resources' (ASX:CRS) Island gold project have also outlined the region’s rich gold prospectivity.

That’s not to say Jungar Flats can’t stand on its own.

Historical exploration has already proven that gold is indeed present – particularly at the Middle Bore prospect where wide-spaced shallow RAB returned assays of up to 18m at 1.49g/t gold from 18m while deeper diamond drilling struck 6m at 1.43g/t gold from 148m.

Scorpion is understandably keen to test this potential and is already preparing to launch in late February a reverse circulation drill program to test multiple walk-up high-grade gold targets with systematic soil geochemistry and detailed mapping along with historical intercepts such as 12m at 7.40g/t gold from 44m, including 2m at 42.4g/t at the Lantern target and 5m at 8.28g/t gold from 9m at Cap Lamp.

To earn an initial 51% interest, the company will be required to spend $1.5m within three years. This can be increased to 70% by spending a further $1.5m within five years.

Cavalier Resources (ASX:CVR)

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CVR’s Crawford gold project in WA is getting close to being production-ready following the submission of all compliance records, approvals and applications.

A lot of the in-housework was carried out during the December quarter to progress finalising the mining approvals for the Stage 1 open pit.

With the current spot price far higher than the $2900/oz gold price applied to the company’s PFS released in March last year, CVR said yesterday that Stage 1 is forecast to generate substantial free cash flow, surpassing the explorer’s modest $4.28m market capitalisation.

The company is now turning its attention towards completing a funding agreement, finalising process plant designs, securing procurement streams to source plant and equipment and continue engagement with traditional owners.

Latitude 66 (ASX:LAT)

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LAT is carrying out a scoping study on the KSB North asset in Finland based on an existing 7.3Mt resource grading 2.7g/t gold for 650,000oz and 0.08% cobalt for 5840t.

Reverse circulation drilling is also set to begin, testing defined geophysical and geochemical anomalies at the K6E and K6W prospects where previous boulder results returned 490g/t gold and 0.07% cobalt.

Both anomalies are beneath approximately 2-3m of transported till cover, with RC drilling ideal for shallow testing of the underlying bedrock geology.

While RC drilling is not widely used in Europe, it could reduce costs and enable more efficient exploration in both cost and time allowing more rapid drilling of multiple targets throughout the project area.

Mobilisation of the rig and associated supporting equipment is anticipated in March 2025 and results will follow in Q2 2025.

Hamelin Gold (ASX:HMG)

Surface soil sampling using Ultrafine analytical technology has defined a discrete gold anomaly at Hamelin’s Ularring project in WA’s Eastern Goldfields region.

The gold anomaly extends over 500m in strike and is 18km south of  Ora Banda's (ASX:OBM) Riverina operations.

Adding interest, a single sample from a sub-cropping quartz vein, proximal to the Ularring gold anomaly, returned an assay of 7.9g/t gold.

The Ularring project itself covers a 4km section of the Ida Fault Zone, a major domain bounding structure associated with multiple gold deposits in the region.

HMG plans to carry out aircore drilling in March to test the anomaly.

Australian Mines (ASX:AUZ)

Auger drilling at AUZ’s Jequie project in Brazil’s Bahia has returned consistent near-surface intervals of saprolite and clay that are enriched in rare earth elements over vertical intervals of up to 20m.

Notable assays from the drilling are 15m at 1720ppm total rare earth oxides including 3m at 3055ppm TREO (DAME-FT-14) and 2m at 1842ppm TREO (DAME-FT-12) while 69% of the assays returned TREO values greater than 400ppm.

Adding interest, analysis of drill hole assays shows a depletion of cerium relative to other REEs, a strong indicator that the REE enrichment is related to ionic adsorption clays.

The company has defined the North Dário Meira Eluvial and North Dário Meira Eluvial, which occupy topographic lows amendable to REE enrichment, for follow up exploration to expand the footprint of known TREO enrichment.

Additional exploration may include geological mapping, geochemical sampling and auger drilling as well as metallurgical testwork to gain a better understanding of its potential.

After popping in the morning, AUZ pulled back to even by the close of trade.

At Stockhead, we tell it like it is. While Scorpion Minerals, Latitude 66 and Australian Mines are Stockhead advertisers, they did not sponsor this article.

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.

Originally published as Resources Top 5: Investors swoon as Scorpion’s golden arrow strikes