Top Resources 4: Helix, Bastion and Sunstone in the green after seeing red (metal)

Helix Resources leads the ressie pack today on strong Cobar-region copper drilling news
Bastion and Sunstone also making red-metal-tinged gains
And Riversgold is up, as it mobilises newly contracted drills for Kalgoorlie gold

Here are some of the biggest resources winners in early trade, Thursday May 16.

Helix Resources (ASX:HLX)

Cobar-region copper player Helix has revealed today it’s drilling into a bunch of promising anomalies at its Canbelego copper project in central NSW.

And, we’re assuming, this news would absolutely, 100% be why the HLX share price has burst up a super 66% so far today. Like many a copper stock, Helix is travelling well this year, up about 40% YTD.

Up to 3000m at Canbelego has been allocated by the company for the testing of a large (625m long) undrilled Induced Polarisation (IP) chargeable anomaly just west of the Canbelego copper resource.

Essentially, the area is deemed by Helix as highly prospective for what it describes as “Cobar-style parallel copper lodes”.

New IP Extends Target Zone for New #Copper Lodes at Canbelego | $HLX ASX announcement https://t.co/Plm0c5gj1N #exploration #Cobar #HLX #helixresources pic.twitter.com/XZbMyJ1OoG

— Helix Resources Limited (@helixresources) May 8, 2024

Initial assay results are expected in late June. Meanwhile, Helix has other exploration activities very much on the go, with an auger infill program happening across three multi-kilometre gold geochemical anomalies at the company’s Eastern Group Tenements.

That said, Helix’s MD, Dr Kylie Prendergast, noted that “the new ‘far’ Western Canbelego target is the largest and strongest IP anomaly which we have identified to date.”

Prendergast also added some context on the “parallel copper lodes” prospectivity, noting their prevalence at Metal Acquisition’s “large, high-garde CSA copper deposit”.

HLX share price

Riversgold (ASX:RGL)

Junior explorer Riversgold has all its golden ducks lined up at its highly prospective Northern Zone gold project, about 25km east of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia.

More specifically, it has the drill rigs contracted (one reverse circulation, the other air core) and ready to spin hard into some hard rock next week.

Earlier in the week, the company announced a placement of $1.85 million to help fund the step-out drilling program at the project, where its aim is to define a maiden, JORC-compliant gold resource.

In May last year, Riversgold executed an agreement with London-listed Oracle Power to earn an 80% interest in Northern Zone, which has an exploration target of 200-250Mt grading 0.4-0.6g/t gold for 2.5-4.8Moz of contained gold.

Our Northern Zone Project, nearby Kalgoorlie, features a major Exploration Target centred around a large porphyry gold system.

With +100m zones diamond drilled by us last year, the target is big & ready for drilling! #ASX #ASXNews #Gold #Au @Sonder_Managemt @DavidLenigas pic.twitter.com/MOG5q7SkfM

— Riversgold Limited (@Riversgold_Ltd) May 16, 2024

RGL share price

Bastion Minerals (ASX:BMO)

This early-stage exploration minnow, on the hunt for copper, gold, and green metals, is in the news and the fresh double-digit gains.

The company has provided an update on its rare earths activities in Sweden, where it holds the highly prospective, high-grade REE Gyttorp project and eight additional applications in the area.

Bastion is currently conducting field work to evaluate the REE prospectivity as well as the copper potential at the sites.

It has reason to be positive, with previous exploration in Gyttorp identifying high-grade REE, including an open ended, 500+ metre trend that Bastion says may well extend over more than a kilometre.

The company’s previous results include up to 7.27% Total Rare Earth Elements (TREE) +Yttrium (Y).

Regarding the potential for red metal action, Bastion says that Gyttorp hosts an area of elevated copper, and associated magnetite bodies, with up to 8.5% Cu in rock chips and multiple rock chip samples over 1% in chalcopyrite over an 80m strike, open in both directions.

What next? Bastion plans to re-sample historic data from old drill holes at the sites, with the aim of confirming the presence of high-grade copper.

Source: Bastion Minerals

BMO share price

Sunstone Metals (ASX:STM)

And speaking of copper again, here’s Sunstone, a gold’n’copper explorer focused on a historically rich hunting ground for those metals – Ecuador.

The company’s share price has actually been pretty lacklustre this year so far, and has had a rough ride over the past 12 months or so.

But it’s double digits to the good today, after an announcement of strong gold-copper trench assay results.

And this, says the company, proves that Sunstone’s El Palmar T1 gold-copper porphyry deposit is a large system extending through to surface.

The trenching results are from a broader trenching program to enlarge the areas of gold-copper mineralisation at El Palmar in preparation for the next phase of drilling.

Results from surface trenching include:

• 40.4m at 0.86g/t gold and 524ppm copper (open on all sides)
• 21.0m at 0.34g/t gold and 714ppm copper (open on all sides)

There is scope here to define a substantial maiden resource, notes Sunstone, which the company will put together as an official estimate once the next drilling leg is done and dusted.

Sunstone Metals reveals gold-copper at surface in El Palmar T1 trenches; scope for substantial maiden resource $STM – https://t.co/nRHCQLSKtz

— Sunstone Metals Limited (@SunstoneMetals) May 16, 2024

Sunstone MD Patrick Duffy, who we’re 98% sure isn’t the bloke who starred in ’80s rancher soap Dallas, said that the results continue to demonstrate the vast extent and shallow nature of the mineralisation at El Palmar:

“We have established that there is extensive near-surface mineralisation with strong grades,” said Duffy.

“These trenching results lead us to the mineralisation and will therefore underpin the next drilling program at El Palmar, increasing its efficiency and effectiveness.

“The value of a significant outcropping component to the extensive El Palmar porphyry gold-copper system cannot be underestimated as we prepare for a mineral resource estimate…”