Who topped ASX resources stocks for September? Hint: GOLDIES

Gold stocks ripped up the ASX small caps scene for September as bullion kept punching through all-time highs.

Just like the Shanghai building behind Arturo Di Modica's "Bund Financial Bull" sculpture, gold has shone brightly. Picture: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg

• As bullion kept punching through all-time highs…

• … gold stocks ripped up the ASX small caps scene for September

• Also catching the eye: a Chinese coal deal, Spanish rutile purchase and antimony hunters

It was the yellow metal's  time to shine, and that's exactly what explorer Mithril Silver and Gold (ASX:MTH) did, taking first place among September's ASX ressie performers through an insane 363% gain. This came on the back of an impressive exploration run at its Copalquin gold and silver project in Mexico.

Interest in the junior really started to kick off on August 19 when it struck up to 5.16g/t gold and 78g/t silver over 17.95m from its first six drill holes at the El Refugio area of the tenure.

Ongoing exploration drilling is looking at expanding Copalquin's current 2.41Mt at 4.8g/t gold, 141g/t silver for 373,000oz gold plus 10.9Moz silver (total 529,000oz gold equivalent) endowment, with an aim to double the resource by Q1 2025.

The Copalquin mining district is home to five of the world’s 10 largest silver mines and supplies 25% of the world’s silver. MTH has also just commenced trading on Canada's TSX Venture Exchange (TSX-V) to expand investor reach.

Hot on the goldies' heels in second spot was Osmond Resources (ASX:OSM), rising 294% after announcing the acquisition of an 80% stake in Iberian Critical Minerals and its Orion EU project in Spain, where it's sampled some seriously high grades of rutile, zircon and REEs.

The junior raised $700k during the month and has now been backed by renowned resources entrepreneur Tolga Kumova as an investor and strategic advisor.

Also high on our September ressie winners list, with a 130% monthly gain, was Felix Gold (ASX:FXG), which has been exploring its historical Treasure Creek landholding in Alaska’s prolific Fairbanks gold district.

Historical gold production in the region exceeds some 16Moz, with FXG's leases sandwiched between Kinross’ 11.8Moz Fort Knox mine and Freegold Ventures’ 19.7Moz Golden Summit project (18km away).

From March into April, FXG shares had risen from 3c to 8c when the company revealed the NW Array target within Treasure Creek was an open-at-surface, oxide and flat-lying 2km by 600m gold system – with the ability to be fast-tracked into production due to its proximity to the mill at Fort Knox.

By June, Felix had proved up a global resource of 831,000oz gold at its Fairbanks assets (with the addition of NW Array) and despite a drop in share price, there was forward momentum towards the development of the gold assets.

Focus remained on adding ounces during July, with augur sampling commencing to build upon the resource near Kinross’ Fort Knox.

Then, in August, China put export restrictions on antimony, a commodity commonly found within certain types of gold mineralisation that’s heavily used in military tech, battery technologies, semiconductors and to strengthen alloys.

That’s when shares in FXG started to go gangbusters, as within the junior’s Treasure Creek tenure lies the historical Scrafford antimony mine – which, back in the day, saw some of the highest grades of antimony ever produced – between 38-56% Sb.

Felix Gold's Treasure Creek project including the Scrafford antimony mine. Source: FXG.

FXG immediately diverted its attention and showcased Scrafford’s potential – and the market reacted in step, with investors pouring in to rocket the stock price up last month.

During the month the junior implemented a fast-tracked antimony strategy – recently raising an additional $4.8m to recommence mining at Scrafford by next year and churn out the critical mineral at a run rate of 5000tpa.

It’s now being seen as more than just a side hustle for gold miners, as demand for ex-China sources has hiked prices up to around the US$25,000/t mark.

Meanwhile the month's third-highest gainer was MC Mining (ASX:MCM) (+292%) which almost tripled last month on a US$90m Chinese buyout of the company which sees Kinetic Development Group take a 51% via a two tranche subscription agreement which will back the development of its Makhado steelmaking coal project.

And Trigg Minerals (ASX:TMG) was another head turner with a 167% rise on the back of picking up a string of antimony mines that include some of the highest grades ever recorded in Australia, including its 100%-owned Taylors Arm project which has Australia's highest ever antimony grade of 63%.

The latest acquisition, its Achilles project, includes a huge 14.24% Sb grade at the project's Wild Cattle Creek deposit – the second largest antimony deposit in NSW behind Larvotto Resources' (ASX:LRV) nearby Hillgrove.

Code	Description	Last	%Mth	MktCap
MTH	Mithril Silver Gold	0.625	363%	$62,361,114
OSM	Osmond Resources	0.28	294%	$22,742,439
MCM	Mc Mining Ltd	0.145	292%	$76,178,456
TMG	Trigg Minerals Ltd	0.032	167%	$15,920,421
ESR	Estrella Resources	0.01	150%	$25,447,873
FXG	Felix Gold Limited	0.115	130%	$31,758,700
OCT	Octava Minerals	0.096	113%	$4,644,777
AZY	Antipa Minerals Ltd	0.024	100%	$119,217,486
MGA	Metals Grove Mining	0.098	100%	$10,331,160
BPM	BPM Minerals	0.105	91%	$7,047,832
EMP	Emperor Energy Ltd	0.017	89%	$7,404,580
MHK	Metalhawk	0.17	87%	$17,113,900
AGD	Austral Gold	0.028	87%	$17,757,029
PLG	Pearl Gull Iron	0.02	82%	$3,681,752
HYT	Hyterra Ltd	0.054	74%	$47,519,887
E25	Element 25 Ltd	0.335	72%	$72,571,092
AZ9	Asian Battery Metals PLC	0.029	71%	$9,368,664
SMS	Star Minerals	0.056	70%	$4,736,140
C1X	Cosmos Exploration	0.055	67%	$4,241,251
INR	Ioneer Ltd	0.23	64%	$537,608,050
MAY	Melbana Energy Ltd	0.039	63%	$111,216,735
SNX	Sierra Nevada Gold	0.071	61%	$8,607,644
LRL	Labyrinth Resources	0.017	61%	$62,614,033
CR9	Corellares	0.008	60%	$3,255,647
CTN	Catalina Resources	0.004	60%	$4,953,948
ODE	Odessa Minerals Ltd	0.004	60%	$2,086,565
SAN	Sagalio Energy Ltd	0.008	60%	$1,637,281
CVR	Cavalier Resources	0.15	59%	$6,507,250
IMI	Infinity Mining	0.035	59%	$3,122,115
AQI	Alicanto Minerals Ltd	0.027	59%	$20,199,860
TRE	Toubani Resources Ltd	0.3	58%	$66,542,344
RDN	Raiden Resources Ltd	0.044	57%	$128,264,636
PNN	Power Minerals Ltd	0.125	56%	$15,965,231
TAT	Tartana Minerals Ltd	0.039	56%	$6,392,606
OMA	Omega Oil & Gas Ltd	0.335	56%	$93,095,261
MOH	Moho Resources	0.007	56%	$3,774,247
SRR	Sarama Resources Ltd	0.034	55%	$5,838,776
WIN	WIN Metals	0.046	53%	$14,517,343
AGR	Aguia Resources Ltd	0.041	52%	$51,592,167
QML	Qmines Limited	0.1	52%	$31,367,124
STN	Saturn Metals	0.28	51%	$98,843,163
DMG	Dragon Mountain Gold	0.006	50%	$2,368,030
LPD	Lepidico Ltd	0.003	50%	$25,767,375
MXR	Maximus Resources	0.045	50%	$17,117,108
NAE	New Age Exploration	0.006	50%	$10,763,393
PRM	Prominence Energy	0.006	50%	$1,945,882
TMX	Terrain Minerals	0.0045	50%	$7,200,115
VML	Vital Metals Limited	0.003	50%	$11,790,134
AL8	Alderan Resource Ltd	0.004	50%	$3,818,584
KFM	Kingfisher Mining	0.086	48%	$4,297,200

Other small cap standouts

Paterson Province explorer Antipa Minerals (ASX:AZY) made a 100% gain through September as it took advantage of its widespread landholding and JV's in WA's gold-laden Paterson Province, which is currently subject to a flurry of M&A since Newmont divested its Telfer and Havieron projects stakes.

During September, AZY agreed to sell its 32% non-controlling interest in the 2.84Moz Citadel gold project in Paterson to JV partner Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO) for $17m, cashing up the junior to accelerate exploration at its nearby Minyari Dome gold project.

Octava Minerals (ASX:OCT) dined out on finding historical high-grade antimony hits of up to 13.6% Sb at the Discovery project in WA with and climbed 113% for the month, while fifth-placed Estrella Resources (ASX:ESR) pivoted from lithium to finalise an acquisition of a highly prospective manganese project in Timor-Leste and rose 150%.

At Stockhead, we tell it like it is. While Felix Gold, Mithril Silver and Gold and are Stockhead clients at the time of writing, they did not sponsor this article.

Originally published as Who topped ASX resources stocks for September? Hint: GOLDIES