Gold’s Next Target Up to US$2,500/oz: ABC Refinery at RIU Sydney

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THE CONFERENCE CALLER: The gold price has rallied 25 per cent from its 2022 lows and there is “plenty more” potential to drive it higher, delegates heard at the 2023 RIU Sydney Resources Round-up. By Ngaire McDiarmid

ABC Refinery global head institutional markets Nicholas Frappell told the conference he was not surprised gold was currently around the US$2,000 an ounce/A$3,000/oz mark and said the next targets were US$2,100/oz and $2,500/oz.

He said the four macro themes which were dominating 2023 – and would set the tone for 2024 – were banking sector stress, official sector gold buying, the US debt ceiling and Japan’s exit from yield curve control.

“All contain benefits for gold, whether it is market disruption, anxiety over the valuation of other assets or potential impacts on US growth,” he told the conference.

The closure of Silicon Valley Bank and rescue of Credit Suisse meant “investors mindful of risk started piling heavily into gold” in recent months.

In addition, central banks’ reserves have “risen hugely in the last few decades”, increasing circa 10-fold, Frappell said.

“Last year 1,136 metric tons of gold was purchased by the official sector, January and February of this year another 158t, which is a fairly good start to the year,” he said.

He said official sector purchases were not about rejecting the US dollar but portfolio diversification.

As for the US debt ceiling, “or the possibility of the wheels coming off,” it was less than a month away, Frappell said.

The idea that the US might default was not impossible but it was “unthinkable”, he said, adding the Federal Reserve was doing a lot to manage the process.

“If I can sum up what a debt ceiling crisis means is that even if it’s resolved and worked through, what you end up with is market volatility … and generally speaking I would take that as a positive for gold, vis-à-vis other assets,” he said.

The fourth macro theme was the Bank of Japan ending its long-running yield curve control strategy, that’s kept 10-year bond yields around zero, which was “probably good for gold” and “generally dollar negative”.

“The big number in US dollar gold is 2075 [an ounce] … we have to get through that level to really make progress,” Frappell said.

“There is plenty more contained in those four thematics that I mentioned that has the potential to drive gold significantly higher.”

 

ABx Group’s Rare Earths Resource Update Exceeds 20Mt Milestone

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THE CONFERENCE CALLER: ABx Group (ASX: ABX) has continued the trend of expanding the rare earth elements (REE) deposit at its Deep Leads – Rubble Mound project. By Ngaire McDiarmid

Speaking to The Resources Roadhouse on the sidelines of the 2023 RIU Sydney Resources Round-up, ABx Group said it had increased the Mineral Resource by 50 per cent to 21 million tonnes – from 18 per cent of the prospect area – at its project in northern Tasmania.

The upgrade stemmed from 30 new holes, redrilling old bauxite holes that did not reach the REE horizon and more assays from incompletely assayed thick REE zones.

“There’s a clear pathway to grow the resource, and also the grade and the thickness are both higher than our last than our last announcement,” managing director and CEO Dr Mark Cooksey said.

“So that journey of gradually increasing the size and quality of the resource is continuing.”

Meanwhile, the company’s 83 per cent-owned subsidiary Alcore Limited is focused on building a pilot plant to turn aluminium industry waste into aluminium fluoride and other industrial chemicals.

Cooksey said he expected the plant to be built this year and commissioned early next year.

ABx is also advancing its bauxite projects in Queensland and Tasmania.

 

Turaco Gold Points to More Potential in Cote d’Ivoire

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THE CONFERENCE CALLER: Explorer Turaco Gold (ASX: TCG) has pointed to further potential as it announced gold results from two projects in Côte d’Ivoire, ahead of its presentation on Tuesday to the 2023 RIU Sydney Resources Round-up. By Ngaire McDiarmid

The company announced drilling results including 15m at 1.04 grams per tonne gold from 64m, from a parallel structure to the main Satama discovery at its Eburnea project in central Côte d’Ivoire.

“We got anomalous gold along that whole [parallel] structure, which is about 3km in strike,” managing director Justin Tremain told Resources Roadhouse on the conference sidelines.

At Satama, which about 12 months ago was “just a soil anomaly”, Tremain said Turaco had only tested about half of the known, mapped strike and soil anomaly and everything “remained very much open to the north”.

Turaco also reported auger drilling results from the early-stage Odienne project (76 per cent effective interest) in the country’s north, of up to 6.35g/t gold from bottom of hole sampling in saprolite.

Tremain said Odienne was in “a very interesting geological address, on the edge of the Siguiri Basin … one of the best addresses in West Africa”.

“We’ve previously, with geophysics, demonstrated that we have 30km of the margin of the prospective geology sitting within our tenement,” he said.

“And then this last program, we tested a very small part of that 30km … and we’ve defined a 2km-long what we call saprolite, which is an in-situ gold mineralisation for us then to follow-up with deeper drilling.”

Turaco said soil geochemistry had also defined two additional “large-scale and coherent gold anomalies” at Odienne South, over 6km and 1km respectively.

No Net Zero Without Boost to Mining Investment: Euroz Hartleys

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THE CONFERENCE CALLER: There will be no net zero by 2050 without a substantial increase in mining investment, according to Euroz Hartleys (ASX: EZL) at the 2023 RIU Sydney Resources Round-up. By Ngaire McDiarmid

Managing director and head of institutional sales Tim Bunney said the largest wealth management firm in WA was “incredibly optimistic about the resilience and the outlook of the resources market globally”.

He said the current inflationary environment had put pressure on margins but had created a strong backdrop for commodity prices.

The outlook was further buoyed by the emerging decarbonisation and electrification thematic, coupled with significant underinvestment, Bunney said.

Resources analyst Michael Scantlebury said the energy transition represented “the greatest opportunity” the resources sector had ever faced, touching on three topics he was strongly advised not to talk about, namely coal, politics, oil and gas.

He said the oil and gas industry spent about half a trillion US dollars in the upstream sector maintaining supply and argued there needed to be an increase in both oil and gas investment while rapidly building out the renewable sector “to ensure an energy crisis does not occur in the transition period”.

He believed the build-out phase would be the most metals-intensive and would require spending in the order of oil and gas capex to achieve net zero targets.

Electric vehicles and the build-out of electricity grids were the huge drivers of metals demand in the process, he told the conference which has attracted 1,500 delegates.

“We’re confident that exploration needs to increase and that is largely just to backfill and grow out the pipeline of resource projects which is becoming depleted and more marginal as well,” he said.

Referring to a chicken and egg scenario, Scantlebury said a solution for the lack of exploration, especially greenfields exploration, was high commodity prices to drive risk capital into greenfield exploration.

“Even if you ignore everything I say about the energy transition and you’re a climate sceptic and you believe in thermal coal is the solution to all energy requirements, you can still be a resource sector bull,” he said.

He said the mining investment cycle showed a capex underspend since 2015 and was underpinned by traditional growth from emerging markets in India and South-East Asia.

“We believe that the energy transition metal requirement is purely the cherry on top of this metal demand going forward,” he said.

 

Burley Minerals Identifies Chubb Lithium Spodumene Mineralisation

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THE DRILL SERGEANT: Burley Minerals (ASX: BUR) is progressing the latest drilling campaign at the company’s Chubb lithium project in Quebec Province of Canada.

Burley Minerals commenced its first drilling program at the Chubb project this month, since when it has completed 11 diamond core holes.

The company reported initial visual estimates have confirmed the presence and persistence of spodumene-bearing pegmatites within two mineralised zones within the Chubb Central prospect, building on drilling results from 2017-2022 drilling campaigns by earlier project holders.

Burley highlighted hole CLP010, which intersected 12.27 metres of spodumene-bearing pegmatite downhole, confirming mineralisation of a good thickness, and open at depth and along strike.

“Receiving such highly encouraging signs in such a short period of time is a fantastic achievement for our team and testament to their exploration skill,” Burley Minerals managing director Wayne Richards said in the company’s ASX announcement.

“The company is eagerly anticipating the first assay results which are due in 3 to 4 weeks.”

“Now that the snow has melted at the Chubb project the exploration team has commenced geological and geochemical mapping programs over the Chubb North area where numerous pegmatites have previously been identified.”

 

TO READ THE FULL ANNOUNCEMENT: CLICK HERE

Caprice Resources Identifies Mukinbudin Rare Earth Anomaly

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THE DRILL SERGEANT: Caprice Resources (ASX: CRS) has joined the ranks of the rare earth explorers on the back of recent activity at the company’s Mukinbudin rare earth element project in Western Australia.

Caprice Resources is undertaking reconnaissance exploration to enhance its understanding of the REE potential of the project.

A recent sampling program tested three areas in the southern half of the tenement, resulting in identification of a soil anomaly on an area called QC2, which coincides with an outcropping zoned pegmatite.

Caprice reported the anomaly to be at least 300 metres long producing both rock chips and soil samples elevated in REEs (up to 3,761ppm REOs) and remains open along strike.

The average heavy rare earth element (HREE) component from the samples is over 19 per cent.

“This initial exploration work is highly encouraging and confirms the prospectivity of the project,” Caprice Resources managing director Andrew Muir said in the company’s ASX announcement.

“Whilst the sampling only tested three specific targets, to identify elevated REEs in one of these is an excellent outcome.

“The results justify follow up work to further assess QC2 to delineate drill targets, as well as continue to explore other parts of the 380 square kilometre project, with only 20 per cent of the tenement having been actively explored to date.”

Caprice flagged further sampling is planned to test the remaining strike length of QC2, as well as to systematically assess other areas for REE bearing pegmatites.

Follow up sampling is due to commence next week.

 

TO READ THE FULL ANNOUNCEMENT: CLICK HERE

 

See What Sydney RIU Resources roundup Has in Store

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THE CONFERENCE CALLER: The RIU Sydney Resources Roundup starts next week with over 90 companies presenting and exhibiting. Here’s a taste of what to expect.

 

Pan Asia Metals (ASX: PAM)

Pan Asia Metals is a battery and critical metals explorer and developer with a strategy of identifying and developing projects with potential to enable the company to produce metal compounds and other value-added products to meet the projected high-technology demand.

Pan Asia Metals has two lithium projects and one tungsten project, all located in Thailand, a jurisdiction the company has acknowledged as a low-cost advanced industrial economy that fits its strategy of developing downstream value-add opportunities in low-cost environments close to end market users.

The company’s focus of late has been on its Reung Kiet lithium project (RKLP), a hard rock lithium project with lithium chiefly hosted in lepidolite/mica rich pegmatite dykes and veins.

Reung Kiet has been subjected to previous open pit mining extracting tin and tantalum from weathered pegmatites into the early 1970s.

Pan Asia’s stated objective has been to complete sufficient drilling with the aim of increasing and converting much of the existing Inferred Mineral Resource into the Indicated and Measured categories.

The intention is to use the upgraded Mineral Resource as part of a Pre-feasibility study planned for later this year.

Recent drilling at the Reung Kiet lithium prospect has continued to support the geological model of extensive lithium mineralisation hosted in lepidolite rich pegmatite dykes-veins and adjacent metasediments.

The mineralised lithium zone is currently defined over a strike length of over one kilometre and remains open along strike to the north and south, and at depth especially in the south.

Pan Asia has now moved the drill rig to the Bang I Tum prospect where it will evaluate an existing Exploration Target and more recently reported adjacent target zones.

The company’s other projects include the Kata Thong geothermal lithium and hard rock lithium-tin project – a compilation of five Special Prospecting Licence Applications (SPLA) in the Phang Nga Province in southern Thailand.

The Khao Soon tungsten project is a wolframite style tungsten project located south of Bangkok in Nakhon Si Thammarat Province, Southern Thailand where Pan Asia holds a 100 per cent interest in two contiguous Special Prospecting Licences and one SPLA.

 

 

Torque Metals (ASX: TOR)

Torque Metals holds a portfolio of high-grade gold deposits in Western Australia, the main focus of which is the company’s 100 per cent-owned Paris gold project, located outside Kalgoorlie within the Boulder-Lefroy Fault Zone in the Western Australian Goldfields.

The Paris gold project comprises nine granted, pre-native title mining licences; two prospecting licences; and three exploration licences covering a total area of 176 square kilometres.

Torque considers the project to be vastly underexplored, as past drilling by previous owners was generally restricted to the top 50 metres.

Torque is of the opinion this provides plenty of opportunities for discovery of gold mineralisation through the application of modern-day exploration techniques and by undertaking more extensive, and deeper, drilling.

To that end, the company has already carried out five drilling campaigns at Paris with the objective of better defining the zones most likely to rapidly increase the project’s gold resource base.

Torque has, to date, discovered six different prospects within the 2.5 kilometres Paris Gold Camp.

The company recently commenced a new round of drilling on the Paris, Observation and HHH prospects targeting gold anomalies identified from historical drilling, machine learning algorithms, and geological models.

A diamond drilling campaign is aiming to extend known mineralised zones and to further delineate mineralisation.

This will coincide with infill and extensional RC drilling seeking information on the continuity and distribution of gold mineralisation.

The drilling follows up assay results released earlier this year that Torque claimed to clearly support the high-grade mineralisation structures and the concept of a potential Gold Camp at Paris.

“The results are highly encouraging and, importantly, show all gold rich prospects lining up in a north, north-westerly orientation, further supporting the potential of a ‘Paris Gold Camp’,” Torque Metals managing director Cristian Moreno said.

“Significantly, the successful holes between HHH and Paris suggest a mineralised structure potentially linking the 1.5 kilometres distance among the two deposits.

“Additionally, while further high-grade north of HHH indicates a potential rich-gold open pit deposit between HHH and Observation (1km), the substantial grades westwards of the Paris prospect confirm a consistent mineralised body that is still open to the west and at depth.”

 

Lanthanein Resources (ASX: LNR)

Lanthanein Resources could be categorized as the epitome of the modern exploration company with its focus on rare earth elements and kaolin.

Recent activity across the portfolio saw commencement of drilling at the Murraydium project in South Australia.

The company is investigating what it sees as an exciting exploration opportunity in a region that is considered highly prospective for ionic clay hosted rare earth deposits.

Lanthanein is following on from previous work done in the region by Australian Rare Earths that outlined an extensive mineralised system where shallow near surface exploration has demonstrated potential to delineate substantial JORC Resources of REEs.

At the time of writing, Lanthanein Resources had announced completion of two surveys in preparation for upcoming exploration programs at the Lyons rare earths project in Western Australia.

The company intimated the proposed drill programs will target new high‐grade ironstones similar to what has previously been encountered by drilling at Lyons 11, 12, 13 and 27 prospects.

“Additional drilling of the existing discoveries at Lyons 12, 13 and 27, which are approx. two kilometres from Hastings Technology Metals’ Frasers and Simons Find pits will allow the progress to a potential resource estimation,” Lanthanein Resources technical director Brian Thomas said.

“Drilling the multiple new ironstone trends under shallow cover only recently identified from our review of geophysics will add significantly to the exploration and resource potential.

“We also plan to diamond drill test the magnetic rims of two of the large‐scale Carbonatites.”

Lanthanein recently reported brightness results from a first pass aircore drilling program at its Koolya kaolin project in WA.

The company completed a wide spaced drill program in December 2022, with drillholes spaced 500m apart, covering 15km of prospective kaolin rich granite and intersected widespread kaolin of varying thickness, with a best result of 30m thick bright white kaolin from 4m depth.

“The exceptional brightness results in samples from our first pass aircore drilling at Koolya project is a great result,” Thomas said.

“There is a significant areal extent of high quality bright white kaolin to support the potential for a significant kaolin resource and high purity alumina feedstock project to be delineated with further drilling.”

 

Matsa Resources Reports New Gold Intercepts at Fortitude North

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THE DRILL SERGEANT: Matsa Resources (ASX: MAT) will be keen to speak with delegates at the RIU Sydney Resources Roundup about recent drilling results from Fortitude North at the company’s Lake Carey gold project in Western Australia.

Matsa Resources reported its latest drilling campaign has extended the Fortitude North mineralised zone by almost 200 metres to the north resulting in a strike extent of 1.7 kilometres that remains open in both directions along strike.

The drilling has now extended mineralisation across strike to the east by 60m for a new total width of some 250m.

Matsa declared it has become clear that the Fortitude North mineralisation remains open at depth.

“Our recent drilling results have returned thicker packages of mineralisation than we’ve seen before,” Matsa Resources executive chairman Paul Poli said in the company’s ASX announcement.

“What is really pleasing is that the mineralised zone has been extended and remains open along strike, and importantly, across strike to the east as well.

“Downdip has also not been tested to its full extent.”

Matsa explained that the MRE it had pencilled in earlier this year at Fortitude North that it expected would take the total Lake Carey gold project resource base to over one million ounces would now be postponed.

“Whilst this new drilling is sufficient to formalise a model over a small portion of the deposit, we’ve chosen not to embark on completion of a technical JORC compliant model at this stage,” Poli said.

“Why? Because we only need 114,000 ounces to get us over the one million ounce resource mark and we firmly believe we’d be selling Fortitude North short, when the prize appears to be so much bigger.”

 

TO READ THE FULL ANNOUNCEMENT: CLICK HERE

 

 

Caspin Resources Claims Mount Squires Rare Earth Discovery

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THE DRILL SERGEANT: Caspin Resources (ASX: CPN) will be banging the drum at the RIU Sydney Resources Roundup following the announcement of a Rare Earth Element (REE) mineralisation discovery at the company’s 100 per cent-owned Mount Squires project in Western Australia.

Caspin Resources had drill core from a 2022 drilling campaign at the Duchess prosect that was originally carried out to test a large, discrete molybdenum-copper-gold soil geochemical anomaly assayed for REE.

The assaying of the Duchess aircore holes has identified promising shallow REE, including:

MSAC0141
46 metres at 0.71 per cent total rare earth oxide (TREO) from 32m (1,254ppm NdPr, 216ppm Dy2O3, 36ppm Tb2O3), including 22m at 1.25 per cent TREO from 48m;

MSAC0224
19m at 0.41 per cent TREO from surface (809ppm NdPr, 101ppm Dy2O3, 18ppm Tb2O3), including 4m at 0.80 per cent TREO from 8m;

MSAC0130
7m at 0.32 per cent TREO from surface (687ppm NdPr, 75ppm Dy2O3, 13ppm Tb2O3), including 2m at 0.57 per cent TREO from 5m to EOH; and

MSAC0139
10m at 0.14 per cent TREO from 36m (296ppm NdPr, 47ppm Dy2O3, 8ppm Tb2O3).

“This is a sensational discovery given the tiny scale of the assay program,” Caspin Resources chief executive officer Greg Miles said in the company’s ASX announcement.

“The company has long recognised the conceptual potential for rare earth mineralisation at the Mount Squires project, but given the more obvious prospectivity for nickel, copper and gold this potential had not been investigated until now.

“We’ve now made a significant rare earth discovery, of a relatively unique style in Australia, in a province with no previous systematic exploration for rare earths.

“An important aspect of these results is that it highlights the potential for rare earth mineralisation throughout the project.

“We are barely past the start line on assessing this opportunity.

“The result from MSAC0141 is exceptional and may already represent a discovery hole in a new rare earth oxide deposit, but there are also potentially more targets beyond the Duchess prospect.

“I commend our team for an exceptional piece of exploration geoscience and look forward to the upcoming drilling, further re-assaying, and the next success.”

 

TO READ THE FULL ANNOUNCEMENT: CLICK HERE

 

 

Global Lithium Resources Kicks Off Exploration Season

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THE DRILL SERGEANT: Global Lithium Resources (ASX: GL1) will be eager to discuss its upcoming large-scale exploration activities to be conducted across the company’s two 100 per cent-owned lithium projects in Western Australia at next week’s RIU Sydney Resources Roundup.

At the Manna lithium project, Global Lithium will carry out reverse circulation (RC) and diamond drilling (DD) programs with the aim of extending the large, high grade lithium bearing pegmatites of the Manna deposit.

The company has already completed a range of activities, including a Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) and high-resolution Aerial Photography program; a close spaced, gravity survey, from which data processing and interpretation is underway; a project wide VTEM survey, again with data processing and interpretation underway; and a multi-element soil sampling program across the extended tenement holding with assays yet to be received.

The Marble Bar lithium project is to be subjected to a RC drilling program to test Corridor 2 lithium targets.

An IP Survey is planned across the Twin Veins target to highlight potential chargeability anomalies and further RC drilling will test gold and base metal geochemical anomalies located at the Twin Veins targets and any identified chargeability anomalies.

“The company is well placed to make further significant discoveries within its large tenement holding at both of its 100 per cent-owned lithium projects,” Global Lithium Resources general manager geology Stuart Peterson claimed in the company’s ASX announcement.

“The Manna project has demonstrated to be a very productive system with the large 32.7 million tonnes at one per cent lithium oxide deposit that was proven up late last year.

“Importantly, Manna still shows plenty of scope to extend this deposit along strike with this year’s exploration program.

“The additional technical programs and surveys should provide further Greenfields targets.”

 

TO READ THE FULL ANNOUNCMENT: CLICK HERE