Resources Top 5: Diamond mines are forever… until they become lithium ops

You win some, you Winsome? Lithium stock looks set to make potential gem of a processing acquisition
Meanwhile, critical mineral hunter Auking Mining continues its Saudi foray
Pioneer Lithium, Felix Gold and Perpetual Resources all well in the green

Here are some of the biggest resources winners in early trade, Thursday April 4.

Winsome Resources (ASX:WR1)

Who said the lithium ressie narrative and its tethered-EV-demand story was flagging? Actually, plenty of investment bank-based sceptics – the party-pooping so and sos.

But the hardcore lithium faithful still very much believe, and maybe, just maybe, they’re right to.

Winsome Resources is a strong player in the crowded Canadian lithium fields, sporting a healthy near $190 market cap and a share price on what appears to be a clear recovery path since bottoming out in early Feb this year.

News? It has some of actual interest, having just revealed it’s entered into a binding agreement with Canadian company Stornoway Diamonds.

And that comes amid securing an exclusive option to acquire the assets comprising the Renard diamond mine, processing facility and associated infrastructure – that is, all of the issued capital in Stornoway.

Wait, diamonds? What gives, weren’t we just talking up lithium? Is Winsome pivoting? Nah.

The company sees a “gem” of an opportunity here to repurpose Stornoway’s facilities to help further advance the development of Winsome’s 100% owned Adina lithium project with a new lithium processing operation.

Renard is situated just about 60km south (in a straight line) from Winsome’s 59 million tonne Adina lithium resource.

The Northern Miner, outlining @winsomeres and its “Plan to repurpose Renard Diamond Plant for Lithium”.

“The Renard acquisition will open road and rail access year-round to the growing critical mineral and electric vehicle battery supply chain hub in nearby Bécancour and major… https://t.co/69TNQMQFuZ

— Winsome Resources (@WinsomeRes) April 3, 2024

Winsome’s MD Chris Evans believes that, should the company exercise the option, “the Renard project, processing plant and associated infrastructure has the potential to be transformative for Winsome’s shareholders”.

“It would give us access to a fully permitted, recently operated processing facility that utilises similar steps as a spodumene concentrate dense media separation processing operation, and de-risk project development by materially reducing capital cost.”

WR1 share price

Auking Mining (ASX:AKN)

Explorer Auking is into copper and uranium exploration, along with other base and precious metals, and recently made a few headlines after entering into an MoU with Barg Alsaman Mining Company (BSMC) – a subsidiary of the Segia Gulf Group (Segia).

And that MoU is reportedly to form an exploration and development coalition for mineral projects in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The company has an update on its Saudi interests today, revealing it, and BSMC, have been invited to participate in the fifth Licensing Round for certain prospective exploration projects by the Saudi Arabian government.

“These project areas are very prospective for gold, copper, silver and other base metals and situated in the Arabian Shield geological region of western Saudi Arabia,” said Auking CEO Paul Williams.

Saudi Arabia is moving to go harder and deeper into its minerals exploration in order to diversify its economic gains away from oil dependence. Minerals key to the green transition are high on the kingdom’s agenda.

AKN share price

Pioneer Lithium (ASX:PLN)

This lithium-exploring minnow is on the hunt in Canada… and in Brazil, having just secured a big ~730km2 of tenements in Bahia State in Brazil, “with compelling potential for clay-hosted rare earth deposits”.

The newly defined ‘Verde Valor’ project will complement Pioneer Lithium’s other critical minerals projects, incuding its lithium tenements in Ontario, Canada.

The company notes that the tenements lie within a radiometric thorium-uranium anomaly, which it says may coincide with REE-rich mineralised zones.

Backing up that thought, a site visit reportedly confirmed the presence of highly weathered saprolite clays presenting a favourable geological setting for critical minerals.

The project site is located near Morro do Chapéu and Tapiramutá City in Bahia, Brazil, and is close to good local infrastructure.

Pioneer’s exec chairman Robert Martin said this:

“The Verde Valor Project presents an excellent opportunity for Pioneer to enter the fast-
growing Brazilian critical minerals market,” adding:

“The staking of these highly strategic tenements in no way takes our eyes off our flagship Root Lake lithium tenements in Ontario, but simply adds additional value for our shareholders whilst we finalise preparations for our maiden Root Lake drilling campaign.”

PLN share price

Felix Gold (ASX:FXG)

(Up on no new… wait, gold’s all time high?)

This junior goldie has surged to the top of the intraday ressie gainer chart this morning, with a +30% burst up the local bourse.

Why? That’s a good question as always. The company did make a fresh presso to investors a couple of days ago, citing its current projects and the record gold price…

Catch up on the $FXG investor briefing with Executive Director Joe Webb.
Watch now https://t.co/rfCQGCJP2A

Joe highlighted Felix Gold’s prime location, signaled immediate resource growth initiatives, all in the backdrop of record gold price. #Mining #Gold pic.twitter.com/WuRtIIdwO8

— Felix Gold (@_FelixGold) April 2, 2024

Other than that, we can only speculate that the disconnect between the soaring gold commodity price of late and gold mining and exploration stocks might be a closing gap.

The price of gold keeps on climbing, rising again by +0.9% overnight to US$2,300 an ounce. Another all-time high. A high inflation with no interest rate hikes (or cuts… yet) has been spurring a rush to cash alternatives such as the ancient precious yellow metal.

When we last checked in with Felix, by the way, its executive director Joseph Webb reminded us what the company is concentrating on this year:

“Felix Gold has assets in Fairbanks Alaska surrounded by infrastructure, including a Tier 1 mill that’s hungry for more ore supply.

“Throughout 2023, we’ve been progressing our drilling program near surface, extending our NW Array prospect and we’ve had some exceptional results through that area.”

FXG share price

Perpetual Resources (ASX:PEC)

Lastly, but not leastly. PEC is still flexing a day later with a 30% 24-hour gain at the time of writing. It’s now up 44% over the past 30 days and about 30% YTD.

This is cheating somewhat, but given Perpetual has no further update as of yet, here’s what we wrote yesterday:

The silica and lithium stock has announced “significant expansion” of its land in the Itinga region of Minas Gerais, Brazil – aka within ‘Lithium Valley’.

Two options agreements are in play here, with the new landholdings containing multiple confirmed lithium soil anomalies and peak value rock chips up to 2.1% Li2O (based on initial LIBS analysis, still to be confirmed by assay).

The permits reportedly include “historic artisanal mines exploiting large pegmatites” with confirmed lithium soil anomalies.

Company chairman Julian Babarczy said this:

“Our successful exploration efforts to date had identified Itinga as the highest prospectivity region within our Brazilian exploration portfolio.

“Data collected from our existing land holdings clearly pointed to the high prospectivity of the land we have now secured, both in terms of potential scale and grade.”

In fact, you can listen to Babarczy speak about it further, here:

ICYMI | Today we announced a significant expansion of our exploration landholding in the Itinga region of Minas Gerais, Brazil

Hear our Executive Chairman @JigsawJulian discuss below.

ASX release: https://t.co/ux78XbDKlm
Full video update: https://t.co/UZ3Op535vb pic.twitter.com/jJsgGp8xsL

— Perpetual Resources (@perpetualPEC) April 3, 2024