5.12% Li2O sampled at Critical Minerals Resources’ Mavis Lake
Pioneer Lithium jumps on completing REE augur drilling
Tesoro drills into a significant gold intersection east of its 1.3Moz Ternera gold deposit
Here are the biggest small cap resources winners in morning trade, Tuesday, July 2.
Critical Resources (ASX:CRR)
Hard rock lithium explorer CRR has results back from the lab after grab sampling its Mavis Lake project in Ontario and has revealed some tasty grades of up to 5.12% Li2O.
Mavis Lake is in Ontario’s burgeoning lithium district which is supported by battery producers and carmakers that are spending billions to set up shop in Canada’s emerging critical minerals supply chains.
READ MORE: North America is opening its doors to lithium refinement. These ASX juniors are stepping in to help
Critical Minerals’ Mavis Lake and surrounding projects in Ontario. Source: CRR
The samples were taken at the surface along extensions of pegmatites seven and 24, with other decent grades of spodumene showing up to 2.74% Li2O elsewhere.
CRR has an exploration target of 18-20Mt at 0.8-1.2% Li2O, so the higher grades are encouraging ahead of planned drilling at targets to the south and east of the project’s Main Resource Zone.
A stripping and channel sampling program is expected to get underway this month.
It’s welcome news on the investor scale as shares had plummeted from 5.5c per share in late July last year and bottomed out at 0.7c per share.
The news has lifted the junior in early trade today, rising 28.5% to 0.9c per share.
Pioneer Lithium (ASX:PLN)
Shifting its focus from its Root Lake tenements in Ontario (which it’s still currently exploring), PLN has completed early-stage drilling at its new 73,000 hectare Verde Valor REE project in Brazil.
Every man and his exploration company seems to be snapping up tenure in Brazil – and why not, there’s proven high-grade REEs in a pro-mining region that can capitalise on its proximity to North American markets.
Gina Rinehart-backed Brazilian Rare Earths (ASX:BRE) has a world-class 510Mt ultra-high grade REE-niobium-scandium tenement package and has just recently an oversubscribed $80m to fund development.
Equinox Resources (ASX:EQN) is charging ahead with its own REE project adjacent to BRE in Bahia State too, with grades averaging >2000ppm TREO.
Australian Mines (ASX:AUZ) and Gold Mountain (ASX:GMN) also have have huge tenement packages in the REE-rich Brazilian state.
PLN’s targeted drilling campaign consisted of 30 holes across 300m to reach depths down to 20m to analyse the soil-rich clays that may contain high grades of rare earths.
The company’s exec chair Robert Martin says the short sharp augur campaign was a cost-effective method to determine REE prospectivity.
“As previously announced, the tenements contain anomalisms that may coincide with REE-rich mineralised zones.”
Assays are pending for the $5.5m market-capped junior which had its shares climb a whopping 18% without any actual results being posted and are trading at 19.5c per share.
Tesoro Gold (ASX:TSO)
South American gold seeker TSO has struck gold just 300m east of its 1.3Moz Ternera gold deposit at its El Zorro project in Chile.
Its MD Zeff Reeves reckons the gold grades hit – which show up to 3.64g/t – could be a game changer for the trajectory of the project and is encouraging for any future resource upgrades.
“This discovery at Ternera East is one of the most significant results from El Zorro and has the potential to materially change its scale,” Reeves says.
“The identification of this well-mineralised EZT represents a potential uplifted extension or offset of the main Ternera deposit, which could rapidly add substantial ounces to our existing 1.3Moz mineral resource.”
The company says it will now accelerate drilling programs to rapidly define the potential of the Ternera East target.
The find just adds that little bit more flavour to the potential of El Zorro, after earlier in June revealing high gold grades west of Ternera at Drone Hill.
Tesoro Gold discovers very high-grade gold at Drone Hill with first-pass drilling returning up to 173g/t gold!
Highlights
– 1.8m @ 77.15g/t Au from 59.2m, incl. 0.8m @ 173.00g/t Au
– 3.0m @ 2.48g/t Au from 111.0m, incl. 1.0m @ 7.06g/t Au
— Tesoro Gold (@TesoroGoldLtd) June 13, 2024
TSO shares were up 7.14% after kick off to trade at 3c per share.
Classic Minerals (ASX:CLZ)
(Up on yesterday’s news)
WA gold hunter CLZ jumped in early trade today after again confirming a US$60m deal with AuResources to fund the development of its Forrestania projects.
The projects have a combined 377,946oz of contained gold and an initial US$10m will be given to the junior to develop production capacity across the Kat Gap, Lady Magdalene and Lady Ada gold deposits.
The rest of the cash is planned to be drip fed in further US$10m payments each quarter up to the US$60m agreed upon amount.
The less-than penny stock climbed 50% in eary trade today and is trading at 0.1c per share and has a market cap of $755,000.
NewPeak Metals (ASX:NPM)
(Up on no news)
A recent uranium and REE land acquisition late last month might be the reason there’s a flame under NPM’s stock price today after it snapped up the Strange Lake North and Stewart Lake tenement packages in Quebec.
The minnow reckons there’s pretty good prospectivity for both uranium and rare earths, with the Strange Lake project already containing a 278Mt at 0.93% TREO mineral resource.
There’s lots of compiled datasets the explorer is sifting through ahead of planned surveys that the company hopes will define targets for future drilling of the projects.
The company is rejuvenating itself into critical minerals and has an Argentine gold asset it says it’s getting rid of and is raising $500,000 through a rights issue to to drive exploration in North America.
The nearly $3m market-capped explorer is up 33% out of the gate today trading at 2.4c per share.
At Stockhead, we tell it like it is. While Tesoro Gold is a Stockhead advertiser, it did not sponsor this article.
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