February 2022 VOLUME 1. ISSUE 301 $11.95
PAL1000 Gold Assay System
• High quality
• Proven technology
• Onsite gold assays
• Rapid turnaround
• Large sample size
• Single operator
• Low CAPEX/OPEX
• Robust
Up to 400
SAMPLES per
FAST, HIGH-QUALITY, 12-hour shift
LOW-COST GOLD ANALYSIS
MPC’S PAL MACHINE OPERATING NOTES Australia’s Paydirt February 2022
The PAL1000 is an ideal tool for rapid turnaround gold assays, The PAL 1000 is fully enclosed for
delivering a large number of assay results at low cost. safety and noise reduction with safety
Short pulverizing/leach times of 1-hour have assays reported interlocks.
within 2 hours. Operating parameters such as grinding
Large sample size capability makes the PAL100 ideal for coarse gold media charge, reagent dose rate,
Endless energy:ndless energy:Endless energy:
analysis, reducing the nugget effect. sample size, run time and speed can
all be varied onsite to suit sample
requirements. E
TECHNICAL NOTES
The PAL1000 contains 52 sample pots, each capable of processing
up to 1kg ore samples.
T
Samples are completely pulverised (typically >90% passing 75um) and
simultaneously leached with MPC’s uniquely formulated Assay Tabs™. The new faces powering the IPOhe new faces powering the IPOThe new faces powering the IPO
Once leaching is complete, leach solution is collected and analysed
for gold by AAS. Silver and Copper analysis can also be performed.
The pots and grinding media are washed before returning the media
to the pots for the next sample. By simply adding water, ore samples
and Assay Tabs™, the unit ready for the next run. • Grade Control
• Mill Samples
N
• Exploration l l New floats: The Class of 2021ew floats: The Class of 2021
Skills: Hard borders, millennials, FIFOkills: Hard borders, millennials, FIFO
S
l l
For your onsite gold analysis needs, contact your PAL’s at: 01
S
Mineral Process Control (MPC) Pty Ltd l l Site visits: Liontown, Nexus, Estrellaite visits: Liontown, Nexus, Estrella
30 Furniss Rd, LANDSDALE, WA, 6065 ISSN 1445-3436 343007
TEL +61 8 9303 2334 WEB www.mpcwa.com EMAIL [email protected] 771445
9
contents
PAYDIRT (ISSN 1445-3436) NEWS
Published by 8
Paydirt Media Pty Ltd. It’s set to be a big year for Australian nickel
A.C.N. 063 985 133 miners, developers and explorers with several
corporate deals being executed in December
Head Office: and January. IGO and Western Areas finally
Suite 9, 1297 Hay St, West Perth went public with their merger proposal while
Western Australia 6005 Andrew Forrest’s Wyloo Metals outbid BHP
P.O. Box 1589, West Perth for Canadian group Noront. BHP subsequently
Western Australia 6872 sated its nickel appetite with a $US40 million
Phone: (+61 8) 9321 0355 investment in the Kabanga nickel project in
Facsimile: (+61 8) 9321 0426 Tanzania
[email protected]
www.paydirt.com.au
12 SITE VISITS
The Paydirt team has been out and about in
Editorial: the last few months, visiting gold, nickel and
Editor: Dominic Piper lithium projects in Western Australia. Michael
Journalists: Michael Washbourne, Washbourne headed to Nexus Minerals’ 12
Fraser Palamara Wallbrook gold project near Carosue Dam,
Art director: Nick Brown Fraser Palamara joined Estrella Resources
Contributors: Brendan Ryan for a tour of its Carr Boyd nickel project near
(Johannesburg) Kalgoorlie and Dominic Piper ventured to
Leinster with Liontown Resources for the
Advertising:
Advertising manager: Richa Fuller signing of its Native Title agreement with the
Tjiwarl traditional owners
Subscriptions: Vidy Suastika
Phone: (+61 8) 9321 0355
Facsimile: (+61 8) 9321 0426 22 COVER
Pre-press and printing: More than 100 floats made it to the ASX in 2021
Vanguard Press, 26 John St, as investors flocked to new listings. It was the
Northbridge WA 6003 busiest IPO market in a decade. The spotlight
Member of: now moves to how these newcomers will perform
in future years. As Michael Washbourne found
out, there is no perfect recipe for success but
there are a few vital ingredients in the mix
58 SKILLS
Paydirt Media 22
Executive chairman: Bill Repard Miners are feeling the pressure of labour
Finance manager: Giovanny Jefferson shortages caused by the pandemic. But even
Accounts/administration: when the COVID-19 cloud lifts, companies
will have to work smarter and harder to attract
Anjali Mediratta a new generation of employees who are
Conferences: Mitchelle Matambo, demanding so much more than salary from
Christine Oelschlaeger, their employers. Paydirt looks at the dilemma
Melita Fogarty facing Australia’s resources sector
February 2022 VOLUME 1. ISSUE 301 $11.95
PAL1000 Gold Assay System
• High quality
• Proven technology
• Onsite gold assays
• Rapid turnaround MINING SERVICES
• Large sample size 64
• Single operator
• Low CAPEX/OPEX
• Robust Up to 400
SAMPLES per
FAST, HIGH-QUALITY, 12-hour shift Things rarely stay still in the modern fast-paced
LOW-COST GOLD ANALYSIS
MPC’S PAL MACHINE OPERATING NOTES Australia’s Paydirt February 2022
The PAL1000 is an ideal tool for rapid turnaround gold assays, The PAL 1000 is fully enclosed for
delivering a large number of assay results at low cost. safety and noise reduction with safety mining services sector. Whether its innovative
interlocks.
Short pulverizing/leach times of 1-hour have assays reported
within 2 hours. Operating parameters such as grinding
media charge, reagent dose rate,
Large sample size capability makes the PAL100 ideal for coarse gold
E
analysis, reducing the nugget effect. sample size, run time and speed can
all be varied onsite to suit sample
requirements.
TECHNICAL NOTES Endless energy:ndless energy:Endless energy: processing, assaying or drilling technology or a
The PAL1000 contains 52 sample pots, each capable of processing
up to 1kg ore samples.
T
Samples are completely pulverised (typically >90% passing 75um) and
simultaneously leached with MPC’s uniquely formulated Assay Tabs™. The new faces powering the IPOhe new faces powering the IPOThe new faces powering the IPO
Once leaching is complete, leach solution is collected and analysed
for gold by AAS. Silver and Copper analysis can also be performed.
The pots and grinding media are washed before returning the media 92 Energy
to the pots for the next sample. By simply adding water, ore samples shift to net zero emissions, mining services and
and Assay Tabs™, the unit ready for the next run. • Grade Control
• Mill Samples
• Exploration l New floats: The Class of 2021 New floats: The Class of 2021
l
l Skills: Hard borders, millennials, FIFO Skills: Hard borders, millennials, FIFO managing director
l
For your onsite gold analysis needs, contact your PAL’s at: 01 technology companies are playing a leading
Mineral Process Control (MPC) Pty Ltd l Site visits: Liontown, Nexus, Estrella Site visits: Liontown, Nexus, Estrella ISSN 1445-3436
l
30 Furniss Rd, LANDSDALE, WA, 6065 771445 343007
TEL +61 8 9303 2334 WEB www.mpcwa.com EMAIL [email protected] Siobhan Lancaster
role in innovation within the sector. We provide
9
our regular wrap of what’s happening in the
Member of: space
58
Registered by Australia Post PP 643938/0071.
No pages or articles in this publication may be
reproduced in any form without the consent of the
publisher. This includes photographs either taken
by Paydirt Media staff or provided by other parties.
There can be few times when the
West Australian resources sector
has headed into a new year with
such uncertainty.
ronic perhaps, that the uncertainty has little to do with prices. Af- rules around isolation for positive cases and close contacts. Other
Iter an initial fall following the onset of the pandemic, commodity states have already redrawn their definitions in the face of absen-
prices across the board rebounded strongly throughout 2020 and tees. How will McGowan, who has shown as much caution as he
into 2021. has resolve during the pandemic, adjust to this challenge?
The problem is that while the iron ore majors, gold miners and Industry itself is already putting plans in place. Speaking on the
base and battery metals producers are enjoying record prices, company’s quarterly results call, Northern Star managing director
margins are flagging. Stuart Tonkin said the company’s harrowing experience at Pogo
The COVID-19 pandemic has been a drag on operating costs, – where there was a major outbreak of the virus – had given it a
as evidenced by the likes of Rio Tinto Ltd, BHP Ltd and Northern head-start in planning around WA operations.
Star Resources Ltd in their half-year and quarterly results in Janu- “Overall, it is still difficult to establish what the actual impacts
ary. could be. All the companies [in WA] are very well prepared and
Rio Tinto and BHP specifically referenced the pandemic as hav- particularly given our experience at Pogo in Alaska we’ve imple-
ing an impact on production while Northern Star saw AISC reach mented a lot of the same things to mitigate the amount of contacts
$1,631/oz in the December quarter with the COVID-ravaged Pogo our teams are having. We have a lot of contingencies and diversi-
operation in Alaska producing at $US1,735/oz. fication in where operations, activity and skills fit.”
That these companies are producing anywhere near guidance Speaking to The West Australian, Chamber of Minerals & En-
at all is testament to their own planning and the cooperation with ergy WA (CMEWA) chief executive Paul Everingham said the early
government. release of guidelines was vital.
It has been a fine balancing act performed by the WA Govern- “The sooner the better because otherwise uncertainty just leads
ment and the resources sector. While industry has quietly lament- to questions,” he said.
ed the restrictions on interstate and international workers, it has not Everingham pointed to Queensland and South Australian mod-
made a big issue of it. Premier Mark McGowan granted the indus- els where close contact isolation had been reduced to seven and
try “essential” status early on, a move which provided a lifeline to 10 days respectively. There is also a changing of the definition of
state and federal coffers when so many other sectors – particularly close contact at the national level.
education, tourism and hospitality – have been in strife. “And there would likely be close contacts which ideally would
Although it has never been stated publicly, the major miners be deemed close contacts under the National Cabinet definition,
must have run their own calculations and models and decided a which is four hours of close contact with the positive case,” he said.
labour squeeze was preferable to community spread of COVID-19. One group of miners and explorers who will be eagerly awaiting
That decision has been vindicated in recent weeks as WA the border changes are Australia’s cohort of overseas miners.
watches vast swathes of the rest of Australia’s economy close due The sacrifices many of these workers have made over the last
to virus-induced absences. two years is little short of remarkable. I have been told of workers
This splendid isolation cannot last forever but as Paydirt went staying on site for up to nine months without coming home, only
to print McGowan announced that the hard border would stay up to be told at the last moment their flights have been cancelled and
past February 5. they will have to wait another four weeks to see family.
While Omicron and the parlous state of the WA hospital system Even senior executives have endured long bouts of quarantine.
were cited as the main reasons, there is little doubt the resources I have spoken to a dozen managing directors who have submitted
sector will be breathing a sigh of relief because there were far too themselves to multiple stints in hotel quarantine after needing to
many unanswered questions about an open WA. travel to West Africa, Latin America and Asia to assess project
What will the labour situation look like with no travel restrictions? development and operations.
Will the gain of accessing workers from interstate and overseas The mental strain this must put on individuals and families is im-
be enough to soften the blow created by COVID-19 sick leave? possible to quantify for those who haven’t suffered it, so with bor-
Also, after two years of being barred from leaving, how many ex- ders seemingly ready to come down, they will hopefully be granted
pats will decide it is time to return to their east coast or overseas reprieve and get on with the business of building projects and com-
hometowns and families? panies which create value for shareholders, host communities and
Answers to these questions have now been put back but they all stakeholders.
will return.
Much will depend on how the State Government structures the [email protected] @DominicPiper
Page 4 FeBRUaRY 2022 aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT
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ChemX’s HPA X-factor
hemX Materials Ltd expects to begin Q2 once the 1-2kg/day micro-plant is op- the Kimba and Jamison Tank projects) and
Cconstruction of its high purity alumina erational. Neometals Ltd. Former Tianqi Lithium Aus-
(HPA) pilot plant in the coming months af- ChemX hopes to start commissioning tralia boss Phil Thick is also as a large top
ter completing an oversubscribed $8 million within 12-18 months of the pilot plant build 20 shareholder.
IPO and becoming one of the year’s first getting under way. Young said the company’s story reso-
new listings. The first drill holes into the company’s nated more strongly with investors and bro-
While the company brings to market a Kimba kaolin-halloysite and Jamison Tank kers out of Europe and the US than their
suite of manganese and kaolin-halloysite manganese projects are expected this counterparts in Australia, suggesting more
projects on South Australia’s Eyre Penin- month. work was required to educate the local mar-
sula, ChemX’s flagship asset is the HiPurA Speaking to Paydirt on the sidelines of its ket about the anticipated growth in the HPA
processing technology developed by Dr ASX listing ceremony, ChemX chair Kristie industry.
Nicholas Welham. Young said the complementary business “I don’t think the brokers over here are
HiPurA offers a unique processing option strategies had struck a chord with investors quite as advanced in their thinking around
for HPA production for the lithium-ion bat- looking for a different type of exposure to these types of projects, it’s not your simple
tery and synthetic sapphire markets. The the growing battery minerals thematic. gold or nickel play, it’s got a couple of differ-
in-house technology has been proven to “I think the good thing about ChemX is ent elements to it,” she said.
produce a 99.99% pure Al2O3 product at we’ve got a number of different parts to the “The investors and brokers overseas are
bench scale, with optimisation studies con- business,” she said. much more across it, much more interested
ducted over the last three months providing “There’s some companies that are just and ahead of the game. Some of the bro-
the basis for the design of the flow sheet. built on kaolin alone, there are some that kers here have now expanded their teams
It is also expected to have lower capital are just built on HPA alone and some just to cover HPA which is great. I think these
and operating costs than incumbent HPA built on manganese alone; we’ve got a commodities will see more and more un-
operators. blend of all three.” derstanding as to how important they are.”
Primero has started design work on the ChemX’s register includes fellow ad- One of the other main benefits of the
modular HPA pilot facility. Construction vanced materials technology companies HiPurA technology is the process’s scala-
works are tentatively pencilled in for early Archer Materials Ltd (previous owner of bility, allowing HPA production to grow with
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Page 6 FeBRUaRY 2022 aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT
hile most companies are choosing the IPO route as their pre-
Wferred path to market, others have found success via a back-
door listing.
Diamond explorer Odessa Minerals Ltd debuted on the ASX last
month after completing a reverse takeover of AI/IT software devel-
opment company Fargo Enterprises. Reinstatement to the bourse
followed an oversubscribed $6 million capital raising and a one-in-
five consolidation of existing shares.
Odessa becomes just the fourth primary diamond company listed
in Australia alongside Burgundy Diamond Mines Ltd, Lucapa Dia-
mond Company Ltd and Newfield Resources Ltd.
Speaking to Paydirt following the successful relisting, Odessa
chief executive Alistair Stephens said clear gaps were emerging in Kimberley region.
the niche diamond market post the closure of the famed Argyle mine Aries, about 300km west of Derby, is the most advanced oppor-
in late 2020. tunity in the portfolio with gem-quality diamonds first identified at the
“There’s no doubt that diamonds is a tough sector to be in, but project in 1986. A programme of works is expected to be submitted
if you can find gem-quality diamonds economically, there’s a huge and approved early in the June quarter for maiden exploration to
degree of opportunity now within the diamond market,” he said. begin following the wet season.
“Argyle has taken 8 million carats out the market, so it’s in under Stephens said the company was looking to develop spatial models
supply. But importantly, the fact that Argyle broke the De Beers’ car- for both the alluvial targets at Aries as well as the known diamond-
tel meant it broke a lot of paradigms, at one stage the only diamond bearing pipes ahead of its first geophysics and drilling programmes.
you could get was a white diamond. Now you can get them in cham- “There’s a lot of data around Aries, which is non-digital, which
pagnes, cognacs, pinks, fancy yellows and all kinds of blues, which we’re collating at the moment into a digital database to do some spa-
are the rarest and most expensive. tial modelling of where we think the distribution of the mineralisation
“In some respects, De Beers got the market wrong and underval- is,” he said.
ued the colours, whereas the market actually values colours more “In terms of diamond-bearing material, it’s quite low grade at
than whites at the moment. So, there’s a whole new range of market- the surface but increases in grade significantly at depths, so we’re
ing opportunities within the diamond market, both in supply as well looking now at how we model that and targeting some drilling pro-
as quality.” grammes to identify what we think has been missed.
Odessa has either been granted or applied for 15 exploration li- “Ultimately, the real No.1 target for this year is to have a handful
cences comprising the Aries, Ellendale, Calwynyardah and Noon- of diamonds to show our shareholders that we’ve actually identified
kanbah projects across a 2,400sq km tenement package in WA’s diamonds that are commercially viable.”
ChemX’s geology team is based out of
SA and lives close to both projects, about
115km west of Whyalla. The company’s
HPA headquarters is in Perth where the pi-
lot plant will be constructed.
“We’re not expecting too many challeng-
es from an exploration and development
perspective,” Leavy said. “From a market-
ing perspective, we’ll have to play that one
by ear because we are a market-driven
commodity and so you’ve got to be out
there meeting customers. That’s just going
to become part of life.”
Due to COVID-19 restrictions across Australia last month, ChemX’s debut on the ASX took place The ChemX team are hoping the compa-
virtually, without the trademark bell-ringing ceremony. The Perth-based team of David Leavy ny can continue the strong run enjoyed by
(managing director), Dr Nicholas Welham (research and scientific advisor), Kristie Young (non- new battery minerals IPOs during the back
executive chair) and Warrick Hazeldine (non-executive director) wait for the company’s shares to half of last year.
start trading Young said while the company had in-
tended to complete its listing before the end
of 2021, the “universe had done its thing”.
market and customer demand. getting into a serious growth period now.
ChemX managing director David Leavy Our main project should be coming into “We’ve had a few hiccups here and there,
said most forecasts suggested HPA de- production in the next two years at about but I think things happens for a reason,” she
mand would grow in line with that for EVs. the right time for that demand to really kick said. “The IPO was oversubscribed, we did
“I think we’re only at the start of the elec- in.” well in the seed round and we’ve raised a
trification process and so the demand for Leavy does not expect his company’s reasonable amount of money with people
HPA will really be driven by the growth in work programmes to be majorly disrupted who we believe are going to stick with us for
electric vehicles,” he said. by the COVID-19 outbreak on Australia’s a while to come.”
“The forecast growth is exponential for east coast and the eventual reopening of – Michael Washbourne
EVs over the next five or six years so we’re the borders to Western Australia.
aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT FeBRUaRY 2022 Page 7
Trusted independent financial
advisor to the mining sector
2021: Advisor to
2020: Advisor to
2021: Advisor to
Geopacific Resources
Cassini Resources
Diversified Minerals
Diversified Minerals
Advised on the A$20m sale
Advised on the US$100m
Joint defence advisor in
financing (Loan and Stream)
of the Henty gold mine in
of the Dargues gold mine in
relation to the A$76m
NSW to Aurelia.
takeover by OZ Minerals.
Tasmania to Catalyst Metals.
for the greenfield Woodlark
gold project.
2018: Advisor to
2017: Advisor to
2018: Advisor to
2016: Advisor to
Explaurum Limited
OZ Minerals
PanAust
Stanmore Coal
Defence advisor in relation to
Advised on the financing
Advised on the US$90m
the unsolicited A$89m
acquisition of the Wotonga
strategy for the greenfield
refinancing of the Ban
takeover by Ramelius
South Project from
development of the
Houayxai and Phu Kam
Resources.
Peabody Energy.
copper-gold mines in Laos.
Carrapateena copper-gold
mine in SA.
neWs Advised on the A$30m 2020: Joint Advisor to Advised on the A$200m sale
Nickel deals worth more than dimes
anoeuvres in the nickel space are inten- its attention to Tanzania with a $US40 mil- met, Kabanga Nickel said in a statement. T +61 2 9133 9000 | www.icapartners.com.au
Msifying with BHP Ltd – fresh from defeat lion investment in private UK group Ka- The agreement allows for BHP to invest a
at the hands of Andrew Forrest – turning its banga Nickel, which controls the massive further $50 million to increase its stake to
attention to Tanzania as IGO Ltd closes in undeveloped project of the same name. 17.8%, valuing the project at $US658 mil-
on its acquisition of Western Areas Ltd. BHP has rarely ventured to Africa since lion.
BHP and Forrest’s Wyloo Metals Ltd spinning out South32 Ltd in 2015 but with BHP also invested $10 million into hydro-
group had been competing over Canadian Tanzania’s stance towards foreign miners metallurgical technology firm Lifezone Ltd,
company Noront Resources Ltd and its softening and the company desperate to a company founded by Kabanga Nickel
Eagle’s Nest nickel-copper-cobalt play in increase its exposure to battery minerals, chairman Keith Liddell.
the Ring of Fire, Ontario, Canada. While Kabanga emerged as a likely candidate. Lifezone holds the rights to the Kell
Eagle’s Nest is projected to initially produce The project – which counts Falconbridge, process, a propriety hydrometallurgical
15,500 tpa nickel with copper and PGM BHP, Anglo American plc, Barrick Gold flowsheet developed for the platinum sec-
credits, there are a further 22 discoveries Corp and Glencore plc among its former tor which uses pressure oxidation to extract
and seven defined resources on the prop- owners – has taken on near-mythical sta- base metals.
erty. tus, given it holds 1.5mt of contained nickel The process is currently being used by
Noront had accepted a 55c/share bid as well as large cobalt and copper credits. Sedibelo Platinum Mines Ltd at its Pilanes-
from BHP back in July 2021 before Wyloo However, its location in the north-west berg plant in South Africa. Kabanga Nickel
entered the fray. The companies lodged corner of Tanzania, far from any suitable said it was a greener way to produce metal
competing bids over the second half of infrastructure has meant development has than energy-intensive smelting.
2021 before BHP announced it would raise been difficult. The use of the Kell process in a dedicat-
its final $C0.75/share bid. The project was last taken to feasibility ed refinery dovetails with Tanzania’s ambi-
That paved the way for Noront to accept study in 2014 by Barrick and Glencore with tion to get more value out of its minerals.
Wyloo’s bid of $C1.10 which values the a production profile of 40,000 tpa nickel, Mines Minister Doto Biteko said Tanzania
company at $C616.19 million. 6,000 tpa copper and 3,000 tpa cobalt aimed to become “an important hub for criti-
“We are under no misconceptions that identified. However, the subsequent nickel cal decarbonisation minerals”.
this will be an overnight success,” Forrest downturn and policy changes in Tanzania Downstream battery material ambitions
said in a statement from Wyloo. “The jour- left its future uncertain. The JV partners are also at the heart of IGO’s merger with
ney to realise the full potential of the Ring were eventually stripped of the licence by Western Areas.
of Fire will require patience, determination former President John Magufuli. After months of speculation, the two
and working hand-in-hand with First Na- With new President Samia Suluhu Has- companies announced on December 16 an
tions, federal and provincial governments, san more welcoming of foreign investment agreement was reached, with IGO to pay
and regional stakeholders.” in the country’s mining sector, BHP appears $3.36/share in cash to acquire Western Ar-
BHP’s chief development officer Johan willing to take on the jurisdictional risk. eas for a total value of $1.096 billion.
van Jaarsveld said the company wouldn’t “This investment secures access to a IGO managing director Peter Bradford
up its bid. world-class nickel sulphide resource and is said the acquisition was “a logical con-
“While the Eagle’s Nest deposit is a prom- aligned with BHP’s strategy to capture op- solidation within the West Australian nickel
ising resource, we do not see adequate portunities in future-facing commodities,” a landscape”.
long-term value for BHP shareholders to BHP spokesperson said. “[It] further positions us on our journey
support an increase in BHP’s offer,” he said. BHP’s investment in Kabanga Nickel will to become a globally relevant supplier of
Instead, the company immediately turned give it an 8.9% stake once conditions are metals critical for enabling a clean energy
Trusted independent financial
advisor to the mining sector
Page 8 FeBRUaRY 2022 aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT
2021: Advisor to 2021: Advisor to 2020: Joint Advisor to 2020: Advisor to 2019: Advisor to
Geopacific Resources Diversified Minerals Cassini Resources Diversified Minerals Diversified Minerals
Advised on the US$100m Advised on the A$20m sale Joint defence advisor in Advised on the A$200m sale Advised on the A$100m
financing (Loan and Stream) of the Henty gold mine in relation to the A$76m of the Dargues gold mine in financing (Loan and
for the greenfield Woodlark Tasmania to Catalyst Metals. takeover by OZ Minerals. NSW to Aurelia. Royalty) for the greenfield
gold project. development of the Dargues
gold mine in NSW.
2018: Advisor to 2018: Advisor to 2017: Advisor to 2016: Advisor to 2014: Advisor to
Explaurum Limited Stanmore Coal OZ Minerals PanAust Discovery Metals
Defence advisor in relation to Advised on the A$30m Advised on the financing Advised on the US$90m Advised in relation to the
the unsolicited A$89m acquisition of the Wotonga strategy for the greenfield refinancing of the Ban recapitalisation options and
takeover by Ramelius South Project from development of the Houayxai and Phu Kam sale to Cupric Canyon.
Resources. Peabody Energy. Carrapateena copper-gold copper-gold mines in Laos.
mine in SA.
T +61 2 9133 9000 | www.icapartners.com.au
Trusted independent financial
advisor to the mining sector
2021: Advisor to
2020: Advisor to
2021: Advisor to
2019: Advisor to
Cassini Resources
Geopacific Resources
Diversified Minerals
Diversified Minerals
Diversified Minerals
Advised on the US$100m
Advised on the A$20m sale
Joint defence advisor in
Advised on the A$100m
relation to the A$76m
of the Dargues gold mine in
of the Henty gold mine in
financing (Loan and
financing (Loan and Stream)
for the greenfield Woodlark
takeover by OZ Minerals.
NSW to Aurelia.
Royalty) for the greenfield
gold project.
gold mine in NSW.
2018: Advisor to
2016: Advisor to
2018: Advisor to
2017: Advisor to
2014: Advisor to
Explaurum Limited
Discovery Metals
Stanmore Coal
PanAust
OZ Minerals
Defence advisor in relation to
Advised on the A$30m
Advised on the US$90m
Advised on the financing
Advised in relation to the
the unsolicited A$89m
recapitalisation options and
acquisition of the Wotonga
strategy for the greenfield
refinancing of the Ban
takeover by Ramelius
sale to Cupric Canyon.
development of the
Houayxai and Phu Kam
South Project from
Resources. Tasmania to Catalyst Metals. 2020: Joint Advisor to Advised on the A$200m sale development of the Dargues
copper-gold mines in Laos.
Carrapateena copper-gold
Peabody Energy.
mine in SA.
Corporate and project finance advisory specialists T +61 2 9133 9000 | www.icapartners.com.au
Western Areas’ Dan Lougher, IGO’s Peter
Bradford, BHP Nickel West’s Chris Stone and
Legend Mining Ltd’s Oliver Kiddie at the 2021
Australian Nickel Conference
Trusted independent financial
advisor to the mining sector
Trusted independent financial
“ this will be an overnight success. Tasmania to Catalyst Metals. takeover by OZ Minerals. of the Dargues gold mine in Royalty) for the greenfield
advisor to the mining sector 2021: Advisor to 2021: Advisor to 2020: Joint Advisor to 2020: Advisor to 2019: Advisor to
Trusted independent financial
Diversified Minerals
Diversified Minerals
advisor to the mining sector Geopacific Resources Advised on the A$20m sale Cassini Resources Advised on the A$200m sale Diversified Minerals
We are under no misconceptions that
Joint defence advisor in
Advised on the US$100m
Advised on the A$100m
financing (Loan and Stream)
of the Henty gold mine in
relation to the A$76m
financing (Loan and
NSW to Aurelia.
for the greenfield Woodlark
gold project.
gold mine in NSW.
future,” he said. “The unique synergies that flagship Nova nickel mine. The addition of development of the Dargues
will be unlocked across a combined WA Western Areas’ Forrestania and in-devel-
2021: Advisor to 2021: Advisor to nickel hub, combined with the potential opment Odysseus mines would instantly
2020: Joint Advisor to
2020: Advisor to
2019: Advisor to
Geopacific Resources Diversified Minerals Cassini Resources Diversified Minerals Diversified Minerals 2019: Advisor to
2021: Advisor to downstream optionality that this transac-
solve that problem.
2020: Joint Advisor to
2020: Advisor to
2021: Advisor to
Advised on the US$100m Advised on the A$20m sale Joint defence advisor in Advised on the A$200m sale Advised on the A$100m
Diversified Minerals bid,
Investors have welcomed IGO’s
Geopacific Resources tion brings, is expected to generate sub-
Cassini Resources
Diversified Minerals
financing (Loan and Stream) of the Henty gold mine in relation to the A$76m of the Dargues gold mine in financing (Loan and Diversified Minerals
Advised on the US$100m stantial value for IGO shareholders over
Advised on the A$200m sale
sending
Advised on the A$20m sale
Royalty) for the greenfield
NSW to Aurelia.
for the greenfield Woodlark Tasmania to Catalyst Metals. takeover by OZ Minerals. Joint defence advisor in the company’s share price up Advised on the A$100m 2017: Advisor to 2016: Advisor to 2014: Advisor to
2018: Advisor to
2018: Advisor to
of the Dargues gold mine in
of the Henty gold mine in
18.5% in the month after the deal was an-
gold project. financing (Loan and Stream) the long term.” relation to the A$76m development of the Dargues financing (Loan and
Explaurum Limited
Tasmania to Catalyst Metals.
NSW to Aurelia.
takeover by OZ Minerals.
for the greenfield Woodlark IGO had previously concluded that its nounced, valuing the nickel Stanmore Coal OZ Minerals PanAust Discovery Metals
Royalty) for the greenfield
gold mine in NSW. and lithium
gold project. Defence advisor in relation to Advised on the A$30m Advised on the financing Advised on the US$90m Advised in relation to the
development of the Dargues
downstream nickel sulphate ambitions miner at $9.76 billion. acquisition of the Wotonga strategy for the greenfield refinancing of the Ban recapitalisation options and
the unsolicited A$89m
gold mine in NSW.
were restricted by a lack of reserves at its takeover by Ramelius South Project from development of the Houayxai and Phu Kam sale to Cupric Canyon.
Resources. Peabody Energy. Carrapateena copper-gold copper-gold mines in Laos.
mine in SA.
2018: Advisor to 2018: Advisor to 2017: Advisor to 2016: Advisor to 2014: Advisor to
Explaurum Limited Stanmore Coal 2018: Advisor to 2017: Advisor to Discovery Metals 2014: Advisor to
PanAust
OZ Minerals
2018: Advisor to
2016: Advisor to
Defence advisor in relation to Advised on the A$30m Advised on the financing Advised on the US$90m Advised in relation to the T +61 2 9133 9000 | www.icapartners.com.au
Explaurum Limited
OZ Minerals
Stanmore Coal
PanAust
the unsolicited A$89m acquisition of the Wotonga strategy for the greenfield refinancing of the Ban recapitalisation options and Discovery Metals
Advised on the financing
Advised on the A$30m
Advised on the US$90m
takeover by Ramelius Defence advisor in relation to development of the Houayxai and Phu Kam sale to Cupric Canyon. Advised in relation to the
South Project from
refinancing of the Ban
acquisition of the Wotonga
strategy for the greenfield
Resources. the unsolicited A$89m Carrapateena copper-gold copper-gold mines in Laos. Houayxai and Phu Kam recapitalisation options and
Peabody Energy.
takeover by Ramelius
development of the
sale to Cupric Canyon.
South Project from
mine in SA.
Trusted independent financial Resources. Peabody Energy. Carrapateena copper-gold copper-gold mines in Laos.
mine in SA.
advisor to the mining sector
T +61 2 9133 9000 | www.icapartners.com.au
T +61 2 9133 9000 | www.icapartners.com.au
ABN: 55 158 181 241 AFSL: 470003
aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT FeBRUaRY 2022 Page 9
2021: Advisor to 2021: Advisor to 2020: Joint Advisor to 2020: Advisor to 2019: Advisor to
Geopacific Resources Diversified Minerals Cassini Resources Diversified Minerals Diversified Minerals
Advised on the US$100m Advised on the A$20m sale Joint defence advisor in Advised on the A$200m sale Advised on the A$100m
financing (Loan and Stream) of the Henty gold mine in relation to the A$76m of the Dargues gold mine in financing (Loan and
for the greenfield Woodlark Tasmania to Catalyst Metals. takeover by OZ Minerals. NSW to Aurelia. Royalty) for the greenfield
gold project. development of the Dargues
gold mine in NSW.
2018: Advisor to 2018: Advisor to 2017: Advisor to 2016: Advisor to 2014: Advisor to
Explaurum Limited Stanmore Coal OZ Minerals PanAust Discovery Metals
Defence advisor in relation to Advised on the A$30m Advised on the financing Advised on the US$90m Advised in relation to the
the unsolicited A$89m acquisition of the Wotonga strategy for the greenfield refinancing of the Ban recapitalisation options and
takeover by Ramelius South Project from development of the Houayxai and Phu Kam sale to Cupric Canyon.
Resources. Peabody Energy. Carrapateena copper-gold copper-gold mines in Laos.
mine in SA.
T +61 2 9133 9000 | www.icapartners.com.au
oPInIon
CME awards reflect
35 years of progress
t’s always a thrill at this time of year to be able women in our sector has not been accept- As with everything WA mining and resourc-
Ito announce our finalists for the Women in able. es has done since the onset of the COVID-19
Resources Awards. CME and its member companies have par- pandemic, health and safety will be an abso-
This year’s cohort of finalists – 14 women, ticipated fully in the Parliamentary Inquiry Into lute first priority for our sector. That applies to
one man and three companies – showcase Sexual Harassment Against Women In The both our workforce and the communities in
so much of what is good about Western Aus- FIFO Mining Industry and are committed to which we operate.
tralia’s mining and resources sector. eliminating the types of behaviour that have CME and its member companies have
Many have overcome significant challeng- been identified. We will continue to educate had stringent COVID-19 protocols and proce-
es to not only find their way into our sector but our workforce on the importance of respect dures in place since the start of the pandemic
establish thriving and impactful careers. And for others and the benefits that diversity and and have been planning for the border re-
it’s not only their own careers which benefit, inclusivity bring to our sector. opening for months, in collaboration with the
with a desire to guide and mentor others com- Of course, one of the best avenues for WA Government and other key stakehold-
ing through the sector’s ranks being one of showcasing those benefits is through initia- ers.
the key traits I noticed among our finalists. tives like the Women In Resources Awards. We are committed not only to continu-
As a collective, they display talent, dedica- The stories behind our finalists are truly ing to operate safely and effectively through
tion, perseverance, courage, ingenuity, team- inspirational and demonstrate the calibre of this next phase of COVID-19 in WA but to
work, selflessness and a wide range of other people and companies we have in our sector, supporting communities around the State in
valuable characteristics you’d look for not only and the scope of opportunities that are avail- whatever way we can.
in employees but also in leaders. able to those who work in it.
It’s no great secret that mining and resourc- I’m very excited about the prospect of Paul Everingham is the chief executive
es in WA has traditionally been a male-domi- crowning our winners a little later in the year. of the Chamber of Minerals and Energy
nated environment. It’s only a little more than In the meantime, for a full rundown of the 22 of Western Australia
35 years ago that women were finally legally finalists please visit wira.net.au.
allowed to work underground in WA mines. I know it will be covered in detail elsewhere
We’ve come a long way since then. We also in this edition of Paydirt but it would be remiss
have a long way to go. CME’s last Diversity of me not to acknowledge the future reopen-
Report in 2019 found that female participation ing of WA’s borders. Alison Terry
in our sector was only 20.3%. Based on anec- It’s widely known that our industry – along
dotal evidence we’d expect that percentage to with many others – is experiencing a signifi-
increase when we next publish research but cant skills squeeze and the more talented
it’s still going to be quite some way off parity. people who can gain entry into WA from ei-
The past 12 months have highlighted that ther the Eastern States or overseas, the bet-
some of the behaviour demonstrated towards ter we can tackle that challenge.
2022 CMEWA Women in Resources finalists
Outstanding Young Woman in Resources Award Technological Innovation Award
Elle Farris (Newmont Australia) Kim Tan (BHP)
Nynne Rasmussen (South32) Sravani Mukkisa (RIG Technologies International)
Ting Gorman (Shell Australia) Virginie Hannah (Bis)
Outstanding Operator/Technician/Trade Award Women in Resources Champion Award
Madeline Deppeler (Shell Australia) Alison Terry (Fortescue Metals Group)
Samantha Ewe-Jones (Rio Tinto) Marie Bourgoin (BHP)
Sharon Pearce (Shell Australia) Steve Campbell (BHP)
Outstanding Woman in Resources Award Outstanding Company Initiative Award
Deanne Renting (Chevron Australia) BHP – Yandi Mining New to Industry Truck Operator
Program
Kathryn Lewi (Tianqi Lithium)
Compass Group – Respectful Behaviours Campaign:
Sharon Reynolds (Woodside Energy)
Addressing Sexual Harassment in the Workplace
Lab61 – Robotics Skills Hub
Page 10 FeBRUaRY 2022 aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT
neWs
A unique listing for 2022
cheduled to close its IPO this month, Far East sought to rally $3 million cence for operation to production,” he said.
SFar East Gold Ltd will be one of the first through a private raising in December of “We could theoretically build a mine tomor-
new names on the bourse in 2022 and the 2020 and ended up roping in $5.5 million row if we choose to – although our plans
explorer is bringing with it ambitions for a - signalling strong feedback in the com- right now are to focus on exploration.”
jurisdiction none too common on the ASX. pany’s projects and personnel. Far East is currently progressing land
Far East’s portfolio comprises six Neither is this Walker’s first time working use permits for advanced exploration at
gold and copper projects dotted across in Indonesia. Trenggalek and another of its projects,
Queensland, and more interestingly, Indo- “Shane [Menere, chief executive] and I Woyla in Aceh.
nesia. had been looking for projects to leverage “We’re also hoping to soon release some
Given ASX investors are spoilt for our experience in Indonesia for a while,” he assay results from the field work our geo-
choice when it comes to exploration pro- said. “We previously co-founded a compa- logical team completed at Woyla,” Walker
jects in low-risk Australian jurisdictions, it’s ny that acquired three exploration assets said. “Initial results so far have been out-
natural they may be reluc- standing and remarkable.
tant to open their wallets to a One rock sample came back
company pegging ground in at 50 g/t gold, so we’re hop-
Indonesia. ing to release results in Feb-
The country’s approach ruary.”
to resources isn’t as predict- In the meantime, the
able as Australian states company will be looking to
such as Queensland, with get started on its assets in
the recent implementation Queensland. Results were
of export quotas, in-country due at the time of print for
value-addition requirements geophysical data from the
and licence reviews. Mt Clarke West copper-gold
In January, international project while drilling con-
thermal coal prices in- tracts are being worked on
creased heavily after In- for the Hill 212 gold project.
donesia, the world’s fourth It’s obvious when Walker
largest producer, restricted speaks of the company’s
exports of it in January due Far East Gold country director Jimbarlow Gultom (centre left) on site in projects that the challenges
to an energy crisis. Indonesia with chief executive Shane Menere (centre right) associated with exploring in
Restrictions were eased Indonesia don’t deter, but
10 days later, but the Government also in West Papua: manganese, uranium and rather motivate him.
recently revoked 2,078 mining licences as coal. “There’s a lot of good ground in Indo-
part of a review unrelated to the energy cri- “We took a coal mine from nothing to nesia, but not a lot of exploration activity
sis, with another 265 going under the lens. operation in Kalimantan before we divest- happening,” he said. “We’ve got one pro-
Far East chairman Paul Walker is aware ed that. We had a bit of experience in the ject which has a JORC resource in place
of the trepidations Australians may hold acquisition of exploration projects in mine already. We have two others that have the
against Indonesian exploration, but he development in the country and we went makings to be Tier-1, globally significant
is wholly confident in his management looking for something where we’d be able projects.
team’s experience in the country. to leverage that experience.” “We’re coming in with something we
“I co-founded Far East Gold a few years The idea of taking up further private consider to be fundamentally different
ago with [non-executive director] Justin raisings was kicked around the Far East from what you expect from a junior listing
Werner, who is the managing director of boardroom, but a consensus was reached on the ASX. Most juniors haven’t had a sin-
Nickel Mines [Ltd],” Walker told Paydirt. to take it public for better long-term growth gle hole drilled in their tenement yet. We’ve
Nickel Mines currently produces nickel among the assets. had over 40,000m of drilling done across
pig iron in Indonesia, boasting a share Wonogiri, in central-Java, is perhaps Far our tenements. We have large core sheds
price of $1.59 at time of print. East’s most attractive project with a 1.15 and an immense data room full of informa-
“Justin’s experience alone is massive,” moz gold-equivalent JORC resource con- tion and assay results, PFS and scoping
Walker said. “Nickel Mines listed at 35c/ taining 996,000oz gold (53% measured studies.
share in 2018. It’s now a $3.9 billion market and indicated) and 190 mlb copper (43% “This is why we think we’re a very excit-
cap company on the ASX200 and issuing measured and indicated). ing opportunity. We have near-term de-
dividends. Wonogiri also bears strong metallurgy velopment opportunities; we have some
“So, for anyone who is concerned about credentials with up to 89% recovery of ground which has the potential to be very
Indonesia being high risk: Justin is one of gold and 93% recovery of copper via flota- exciting in terms of size and grade. And,
our partners who has actually shown that tion methods. we have a team that knows how to deal
you can go through the full lifecycle of However, it is the longevity offered by with the Indonesian issues which have
development, operation and issuing divi- the company’s Trenggalek project in East prevented other players in the past from
dends back to your shareholders – not just Java which has Walker particularly excited. being successful.”
monstrous capital growth – in Indonesia.” “Trenggalek actually has a mining li- – Fraser Palamara
aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT FeBRUaRY 2022 Page 11
sIte VIsIt
Nexus
in the
right rocks
Nexus is in the midst of a 30,000m drilling
programme over the 1.6km long Crusader-
Templar trend at the Wallbrook gold project,
about 140km north-east of Kalgoorlie
exus Minerals Ltd managing director since 2018 when it acquired an amalgama- we will spend months walking the ground,
NAndy Tudor unashamedly uses the word tion of tenements previously held by New- hitting the rocks and going: ‘yep, these are
“transformational” to describe the events of mont Corp and Saracen Mineral Holdings. the right rocks’ for the style of mineralisation
the past year for his now not-so-small gold The 250sq km ground package had hardly we’re chasing.”
exploration company. been touched over the preceding 25 years The Wallbrook tenements now owned
“Transformational is one of those words despite its proximity to the Carosue Dam by Nexus were previously held by Sons of
that everybody is quite happy to throw operations and several other active mines in Gwalia but the tyranny of distance from Le-
around, but that’s what this last year has the district. onora prevented any serious exploration
been for us,” Tudor told Paydirt following a For intrepid explorationist Tudor, there from occurring on the ground. Saracen then
tour of the company’s Wallbrook project in was always a sense the project hosted “the pulled it out of administration but also nev-
the Eastern Goldfields. right rocks”. It is a phrase which continues er quite got around to exploring the tenure
“We’ve gone from actively exploring to adorn the company’s presentations and given the company’s focus was on mining
ground that we always thought was good to marketing material. and development of the Karari and Whirling
starting to prove that’s the case – and I say “It was a pretty innocuous throwaway Dervish underground mines to support the
‘starting to’ because it’s still incredibly early line…five or six years ago when we were in a rejuvenation of operations at Carosue Dam.
days. board meeting, one of the board was asking Tudor had earmarked Wallbrook as a po-
“I think we’re one of the few notable sto- why we were pushing this Wallbrook region tential acquisition for Nexus when he joined
ries of 2021 to have come out with a genuine and why we were so obsessed about getting the company in early 2014, initially as gen-
discovery which continues to look good. The it on the books and putting this whole pack- eral manager before a swift promotion to
company is certainly in a very different place age together,” Tudor said. the chief executive’s chair. Unfortunately, the
today to what it was 12 months ago.” “I can remember commenting ‘it’s just
It is hard to argue 2021 was anything but the right rocks’ and it’s stuck ever since so Andy Tudor
transformational for Nexus. After opening I started putting it in presenta-
the year with a share price of 13c, the com- tions. Everyone needs some
pany flagged the potential acquisition of the sort of slogan, but ultimately
Bethanga porphyry copper-gold project in that’s what we are about. Any
Victoria as a means of diversifying its explo- serious explorationist knowns
ration portfolio away from Western Australia. you need to be in that right
Shares in Nexus dipped as low as 6.5c in rock package.
late June before surging to an 11-year high “We’ve now coined that
of 65c on the back of a series of strong drill phrase as our own because
results from the Crusader-Templar prospect it doesn’t matter which project
at Wallbrook. we go to, whether it be Wall-
Nexus has been exploring Wallbrook brook or Bethanga in Victoria,
Page 12 FeBRUaRY 2022 aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT
starting to feel that it looked very rating milestone.
much like Karari and that style of “I’ve done this multiple times in multiple
rocks and alteration, but then once locations in the past where you have that
we started hitting the ‘red’ rocks at early discovery, there’s then a period where
Crusader we knew we were defi- it is just nose to the grindstone and you just
nitely in the same mineralised style have to get the work done, and that’s the
as what they’re seeing at Karari,” phase we’ll be going through over this next
he said. 12 months,” he said.
“With Templar, which is 1.6km “It’s still very early days at the moment
to the north, we already had the with some great exploration results and we
sense that it was one structure need to make sure we explore as meaning-
[with Crusader] but we needed to fully and as quickly as possible based on the
do some more geophysics which discovery that we’ve got. The rest will look
then ultimately told us Templar after itself.”
was this sort of a higher order Despite the recent success at Wallbrook,
target than what Crusader was. Nexus is by no means closing the door on
So, we drilled it and in the first few the Pinnacles JV with the company still plan-
Nexus hosted a site visit for investors, analysts and media holes we saw exactly the same ning to return to the project over the coming
late last year. The trip included a tour of the company’s core ‘red’ rocks with a lot of quartz al- months and model its new and improved un-
shed after lunch at the Edjudina Station House teration. derstanding of the geology on the old rocks.
“Hitting the right rocks and alter- Nexus also announced late last year it had
ation patterns now has really given formally exercised the option agreement to
project remained off-limits, but he did man- us huge confidence that not only is Crusad- acquire Bethanga following completion of a
age to strike up a JV with the gold miner for er-Templar significant but this structure will porphyry fertility study on the Victorian pro-
the Pinnacles ground to the south of Caro- continue for another 5km to the north. The ject. The final consideration was $300,000
sue Dam. geophysics is showing there’s plenty more cash and 1.22 million Nexus shares (valued
While the company experienced varying targets that look very much like Crusader at $700,000), having already paid $45,000
levels of exploration success at Pinnacles – and Templar, which we’ll
the project remains on the company’s books get tested in 2022.”
under a JV with Northern Star Resources At the time of print, Nex-
Ltd – it provided Tudor and his exploration us had completed about
team some invaluable insight into the geol- one-third of the 30,000m
ogy of the region. RC drilling programme
“Because of the JV, we were able to spend over the Crusader-Tem-
a lot of time underground at Karari and saw plar trend. While assay
the rocks, the alteration, where the gold ulti- turnaround has been slow
mately is and what it was attached to,” Tudor across the industry, the
said. company continues to re-
“That time at Pinnacles was incredibly well port encouraging results
spent, just getting a general knowledge of such as 8.22m @ 3.53
the regional geology, which often you don’t g/t gold from 90.1m and
get the luxury of time to be able to do. And 4.61m @ 5.78 g/t gold
with the more work we were doing, it just led (within 18.38m @ 2.4 g/t
us more and more to believe that whilst Pin- from 123.72m) in the third Exploration manager Adam James
nacles was good, the attributes of Wallbrook diamond hole.
were going to be significantly better, if we Ongoing exploration is being funded from to the vendors throughout the due diligence
could get our hands on it.” a $19 million placement completed in No- period.
It seemed an incredibly slow burn for Nex- vember on the back of the company’s surg- Tudor, who boasts extensive experienced
us after finally securing access to the ground ing share price. Nexus is in the throes of es- exploring for porphyry deposits over the
it had long coveted, until the drill bit started tablishing a 50-person exploration camp at course of his career, insisted there was plen-
turning up game-changing results from July, Wallbrook to cater for increased activity on ty of room in the portfolio for Bethanga, with
including 3m @ 11.54 g/t gold (within 9m @ site through 2022. Nexus exploration manager Adam James
4.49 g/t and 2.42m @ 4.28 g/t) from 159m at “We put the hand on heart and said this set to take the lead on the next phase of work
the Crusader prospect. thing is looking very real, it is significant and at Wallbrook.
Further hits of 14m @ 8.8 g/t and 10m we need to go hard and fast now to see what “Essentially that frees me up to do a little
@ 5.49 g/t followed in August before the is down there,” Tudor said. “By raising that bit more of this other early-stage work where
company unveiled a major discovery at the money when we did, at a great price with a you might need a different style of skill set to
neighbouring Templar prospect, headlined lot of interest, it was on the back of a genuine explore,” Tudor said.
by hits of 10m @ 5.64 g/t (within 23m @ 2.85 discovery. It’s fantastic to see juniors being “We will often call ourselves porphyry
g/t from 132m) and 28m @ 3.64 g/t, includ- rewarded for that sort of work.” hunters because that’s what it’s like; you
ing 4m @ 10.11 g/t (within 72m @ 1.68 g/t Tudor is conscious of not “putting the cart are really trying to hunt these things down.
from 24m). before the horse” on the back of one suc- It’s not for the faint-hearted, but it’s fantastic
Tudor was now supremely confident the cessful year which yielded a breakthrough when it all comes together. There’s nothing
company was looking in “the right rocks”. discovery and has urged investors to be quite like the thrill of the chase.”
“When we started at Crusader, at the most patient while the company slogs it out on
southern end of the project, we were already the exploration front in pursuit of the next re- – Michael Washbourne
aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT FeBRUaRY 2022 Page 13
sIte VIsIt
Hunting the next big one
ole 30 will forever be a watershed
Hmoment for Estrella Resources Ltd
as it confirmed everything the company
had been chasing: nickel sulphide min-
eralisation surrounding the historic Carr
Boyd Rocks mine outside of Kalgoorlie.
“It was 100% a game-changer for us,”
managing director Chris Daws told Pay-
dirt. “It gave us an enormous amount of
encouragement that what we were doing
was correct and the intrusive basal con-
tact was definitely the place to be look-
ing.”
The assays were taken from the T5
prospect, 1.1km away from the mine.
Results included, 2.5m @ 3.66% nickel,
0.46% copper, 0.16% cobalt and 2.09 g/t
silver, and 3.7m @ 2.85% nickel, 0.65%
copper, 0.13% cobalt and 2.58 g/t silver.
The overall grade of the sulphide zones
was 13.9m @ 1.07% nickel, 0.39% cop-
per, 0.005% cobalt and 1.56 g/t silver.
The effect the discovery had on the
company and the Carr Boyd project was Technical director Neil Hutchison (left), managing director Chris Daws (centre) and senior
almost immediate. Estrella enlisted two geologist Dave Mallon posing with the breakthrough Hole 30 at Carr Boyd
diamond drill rigs to follow up on the re-
sults. methodically drill along the basal con- have been anything but disappointing for
“That hole changed everything for us, tact and gather an understanding of Carr Estrella. A 60m diamond hole confirmed
the project and Estrella itself,” Daws said. Boyd’s geology. Estrella is now more a 3.7m zone @ 1.76% nickel and 0.66%
“It allowed for the market cap to go up hopeful than ever of hitting the next big copper in November.
and gave us better access to capital.” one any day now. “It’s really just time and holes for us,”
However, that pivotal moment for Es- “We’ve got a big year ahead of us and Daws said. “We’re going in and testing
trella happened in November 2020 and it’s coming along, we just need that next areas we know that are highly prospec-
the company is still searching for the breakthrough hit we’re all very keen on tive. Steve [Brockhurst, non-executive di-
next big one – but hasn’t lost motivation getting,” Daws said. “Unfortunately, we rector] keeps repeating to me that 99% of
or confidence. just didn’t get it in 2021.” the world’s nickel is found on these kinds
Daws and his team have continued to
Assays received over the past year of basal contacts. We have at least 15km
of that we want to test and we’re going
along the wall and drilling 100m down-
hole at a time.
“It’s taking time, but we are hopeful
of finding the next breakthrough spot.
We’re in the hunt and continuing to drill
those holes.”
While feeling the dissatisfaction of ex-
treme wait times for assay results, like
most companies, the Estrella team de-
cided to use time wisely and upgraded
rigs which has already paid off.
“We’ve had some outstanding results
over the past year but assay results are
sometimes taking up to 90 days,” Daws
said. “It’s just been insane the amount of
time they’re taking.
“We’re fortunate that we have the XRF
handheld machines to give us an imme-
diate response, but you’re still very reliant
on the assay results you need as confir-
mation of what’s actually happening.
Drill rigs are being put to good use at prospects T5, Broonhill, Mossgiel and Gossan Hill “It’s great that WA is undergoing an-
over this year to continue mapping the Carr Boyd nickel project
Page 14 FeBRUaRY 2022 aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT
Estrella believes it’s a direct extension of
T5’s basal contacts and a significant new
area for the project.
Drilling so far has already confirmed a
2m semi-massive sulphide zone and this
year will see the company follow up drill-
ing in the area with the new diamond rig
and downhole geophysics.
“The CSIRO has actually started col-
laborating with a number of different ex-
plorers, attempting to feed information
between each other,” Daws said. “It’s
quite high-tech stuff.
“Over this year, we want to keep giv-
ing our sulphide materials to CSIRO so
Success seen from Hole 30 allowed Estrella to significantly upgrade their camps after that we can understand the chemical re-
years of being thrifty with their funds lationship between our targets.”
An RC rig currently spinning at Broon-
hill is expected to soon move to Gossan
other exploration boom, but it is putting zones, respectively. The Estrella team Hill, which Estrella believes is a “mirror
serious pressure on some of the servic- has felt its understanding of T5 to im- image” of the T5-Broonhill contact on the
es like assay laboratories which is obvi- prove hole-by-hole and Hole 57 even southern side of the tenement.
ously impacting the wait times.” showed three different zones of miner- Diamond drilling and downhole geo-
Thumb-twiddling was thus swapped alisation alone with increasing grades at physics will also take place at Mossgiel
out for innovation as the Estrella team depth. during the first half of this year.
fitted its drill rigs with extra air compres- “We want to continue drilling deeper at Estrella’s current diamond rig is work-
sors. T5 this year,” Daws said. “Other things ing continuously while its RC rig is op-
“It allows for the equipment to pen- we’ll be looking at [this quarter] is getting erating on a single shift basis as assay
etrate deeper and quicker, as well as in a new diamond rig that we’ve been results from last year are still being pro-
giving us dry samples from any holes waiting on for a while.” cessed.
that may have water in them,” Daws ex- Estrella has also enlisted collaborator But any hurdle in Estrella’s way has
plained. “It has already been a massive CSIRO to study the sulphide properties failed to knock the team’s enthusiasm
improvement…we’re getting very quick between the historic Carr Boyd and T5. and thrifty skills. Technical director Neil
rates of RC drilling at 200m per day.” Three nickel experts from CSIRO visited Hutchison happily pointed out on site the
Even before the upgrades, Phase 4 of the exploration site in November to assist plastic flowerpots used in the past to cap
exploration was seeing Estrella drill up to on the geological model. off completed holes, including the prolific
4,600m over an eight-week period as it Information from the collaboration is Hole 30.
continued to map out the area north of being used to develop exploration this Reflecting on humble beginnings elic-
the T5 prospect. year over three of the latest targets: its joy out of Daws.
Drill holes from T5 such as Hole 41 Broonhill, Mossgiel and Gossan Hill. “As a junior, we’ve always looked to
and Hole 42A have been encouraging, An RC drilling programme began at save costs wherever we can, and you
unearthing 8.25m and 19m mineralised Broonhill, 1.4km north of T5, last year. have to do that as a junior,” he said.
“We’re not a BHP [Ltd]. We have to be
wary when we spend our dollars and
what we spend our dollars on.
“It wasn’t until our breakthrough with
Hole 30 that we really started to upgrade
our camp as well. But once you get boots
down on site, you can maintain a pres-
ence at the project. And once you have
that presence, keeping the project mov-
ing with holes being drilled, it makes
things easier. Our guys on the ground
are living and breathing the project, day
in, day out.
“The nickel sector is really heating up
and I have no doubts this is really just the
beginning – not the end of where it’s all
going. There’s going to be a fair amount
of activity corporately, price-wise and ex-
ploration-wise for us. It’s going to be an
awesome 2022 for nickel and Estrella.”
Drill core on display at Carr Boyd. Many more assay results are still awaited, including
ones sent last year – Fraser Palamara
aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT FeBRUaRY 2022 Page 15
sIte VIsIt
Liontown planning
has Kathleen Valley
ready to charge
nvestors often recoil at the thought of a major capital raising but with a recent
I financial injection clearing the path towards superior commercial returns,
even the most cautious of shareholders has seen the benefits of Liontown
Resources Ltd’s $490 million placement and SPP.
“ Ptween debt, equity and other financing was struck at $1.65/share, a 14.1% discount late into a SC6 price greater than the DFS
roject funding is always a balance be-
assumption of $US1,287/dmt.
to the previous closing price of $1.96 and
– customers, green loans, Nordic bonds, etc a 9.3% discount to the company’s 10-day “We have been steadfast in our strategy
– so it is about optimising the funding mix to VWAP of $1.82. to negotiate terms that we believe accu-
the benefit of shareholders,” Liontown man- The company set the same price for the rately reflect the significance of our position
aging director Tony Ottaviano explained to $40 million SPP, handing Liontown enough in the global lithium market, as well as the
Paydirt soon after the equity raising was funds to cover the $473 million capex and quality and location of our Kathleen Valley
announced. the first 12 months of sustaining capital. resource to ensure that we extract the best
While most developers aim for a debt- Ottaviano said the raising had not only value for our shareholders,” Ottaviano said.
heavy, equity-lite financing mix to ease the covered capital costs but changed financ- Not only has the equity raising given Li-
immediate burden on existing sharehold- ing dynamics for the project. ontown the upper hand in financing and
ers, Liontown’s decision has longer-term “The banks realised that Liontown now offtake negotiations, it has also increased
consequences, according to Ottaviano. had enough to fund development alone, its credibility with EPC/EPCM contractors.
“Even though the traditional banks are far so they came back with revised terms,” he “We are in such an incredible market for
more comfortable with the lithium market – said. “That has had a knock-on effect with mining projects that contractors can say
particularly as they are looking to diversify customers who see that we’ve got major they don’t want to bid for your project if there
away from fossil fuels – they do have sev- funding locked in and don’t need offtake is any doubt surrounding it but now that we
eral second-order conditions which prove terms for debt finance so we can now ne- have the money in, we are getting interest
quite onerous to developers,” Ottaviano gotiate.” from contractors,” Ottaviano said.
said. “When potential customers know you Four weeks after Ottaviano’s comments, “With that one decision we’ve put the
can’t lock away debt without meeting con- the company announced a binding offtake company in a very strong position to extract
ditions around offtake, suddenly they have agreement with Korean company LG En- the best conditions in offtake, debt and con-
the upper hand in negotiations.” ergy Solution. The contract will see LG struction.”
To disrupt this imbalance, Liontown – led buy 100,000 dmt in the first 12 months and At the heart of Liontown’s financing suc-
by evergreen chairman Tim Goyder – de- 150,000 dmtpa in four subsequent years cess is the quality of its flagship asset and a
cided to “go hard” on the equity side of the with an option to extend for a further five vibrant lithium market.
ledger for development of its Kathleen Val- years, representing over 30% of Kathleen With a reserve of 68.5mt @ 1.34% Li2O
ley lithium project near Leinster in Western Valley’s annual production. and a resource of 156mt @ 1.4% Li2O,
Australia. Pricing for the contract will be determined Kathleen Valley has both scale and grade.
The strategy was met with immediate by a formula-based mechanism linked to Coupled with a buoyant lithium market, the
support in the market. When announced on market prices for lithium hydroxide. At cur- project is one of the most valuable hard
December 1, the $450 million placement rent pricing, the contract terms would trans- rock development assets on the burgeon-
Page 16 FeBRUaRY 2022 aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT
Kathleen Valley lithium project DFS (November 2021)
Reserves: 68.5mt @ 1.34% Li2O and 120 ppm Ta2O5
Throughput: 2.5 mtpa (increasing to 4 mtpa)
Production: 511,000 tpa SC6 spodumene concentrate,
428,000 tpa tantalum concentrate
Life-of-mine: 10 years
Capex: $473 million
AISC: $US452/dmt
NPV: $4.2 billion
IRR: 57%
Payback: 2.3 years
ing global lithium scene. ing early 2023 for first
The November 2021 DFS stamped a production but if they
$4.2 billion post-tax NPV on Kathleen Valley are not turning earth in
based on capex of $473 million and AISC early 2022 they won’t
of $US452/dmt. That study was based on happen,” he said. “The
an average spodumene concentrate (SC6) problem is threefold; ac-
price of $US1,287/dmt but with SC6 supply cess to equipment is a
tightening amid increasing demand, several global problem with 60
banks are already changing their forecasts. weeks delivery for SAG
In November, UBS increased its long- mills and other long-
term forecast for SC6 to $US1,800/dmt lead and approvals are
while established Australian producer Pil- a challenge. People
bara Minerals Ltd received a price equiva- in the Western world Liontown chairman Tim Goyder (near)
lent to $US2,629/dmt through its online want EVs, but they don’t want mines in their and managing director Tony Ottaviano
auction platform in the same month. backyard – look at the opposition to Rio Tin- discuss project development options at
The price increases of 2021 are set to be to Ltd’s Jadar project in Serbia. Thirdly, you Kathleen Valley
repeated in 2022 as the global EV rollout can’t underestimate the technical capacity
gathers pace, placing strain on battery sup- needed to run lithium plants and there is a
ply chains. While there is excess capacity worldwide shortage for all skills.” Resources Ltd/Ganfeng were forced to put
further downstream, lithium supply at the The last point is particularly pertinent their projects in Western Australia on hold
mine gate is constrained. given the recent failures in the lithium sec- due to soft commodity prices.
Ottaviano doesn’t expect the situation to tor. While Pilbara eventually overcame its Ottaviano is confident Liontown can
change in the coming 18 months despite a teething problems, neighbour Altura Min- benefit from not being a first-mover in the
plethora of proposed developments. ing succumbed to ramp-up failures and lithium space.
“There’s a number of companies call- the likes of Wesfarmers Ltd/SQM, Mineral “Before joining Liontown, I did a lot of due
diligence on the other companies in the sec-
tor, reading the administrators reports from
Altura to learn lessons,” he said. “The first
thing that stood out was ‘do your testwork’.
I understand the need for speed to market
but you can’t necessarily sort out problems
later. Not all ores are created equal and it’s
not enough to rely on the flowsheet from
Greenbushes which is the highest quality
orebody in the world.
“Secondly, you must enter into the right
offtake agreements and diversify by geog-
raphy and position in the value chain. Cur-
rently, convertors are extracting more rent
than miners because of poor pricing mech-
anisms. Mining is high risk and it requires
higher returns so should have the biggest
margins in the chain.”
The changing demand scenarios are
also playing into Liontown’s hands as it be-
gins marketing its Kathleen Valley product.
“Previously, if customers committed to
prepayment it was at a discount so was
crippling cashflow,” Ottaviano said. “Now,
the market is so hot customers are offering
Spodumene mineralisation on the ground at Kathleen Valley
aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT FeBRUaRY 2022 Page 17
sIte VIsIt
prepayment just to get a foot in the door.”
However, Ottaviano knows that despite
its plus-$3 billion market cap, Liontown will
only win over the market when it delivers an
operating mine.
“We have got to execute flawlessly and
there is no rest as we award all contracts
and get all long-lead items in place and start
breaking the back of construction,” he said.
“From there, we move into a different world
of execution, discipline and excellence. The
mantra is ‘make the plan, work the plan’.”
With the likes of Oreology, Snowdens
and Entec involved in studies and Lyco-
podium on board for the construction, the
company is confident the project has inbuilt
robustness.
Kathleen Valley’s exceptionalism is also
making the development process manage-
able.
It has even absorbed a major mining de-
sign change. The 2020 PFS was based on
a conventional open pit operation but as
negotiations with Traditional Owners, the
Tjiwarl Aboriginal Corporation, identified
heritage issues around Jones Creek inside
the mine boundary, Liontown decided to re-
vise its mining strategy.
“The PFS was largely based on an open
pit scenario but through conversations
with the Traditional Owners on the impact A new way
to Jones Creek we were led to looking at
underground options,” Ottaviano said. “We
then realised there were real benefits pre- on Native Title
viously unrecognised and would deliver a
better outcome.
“Although it may have ended up with
that layout anyway, the Traditional Own-
ers played a major role in the design, par- n the same day as industry and Tra- “It is very poor, sub-standard and doesn’t
ticularly given the heritage impact on Jones Oditional Owners’ senses were height- meet any of the recommendations coming
Creek.” ened by the West Australian Government’s out of the Federal Juukan Gorge inquiry
Chief operating officer Adam Smits said tabling of its new Aboriginal Cultural Herit- and it actually impinges fundamental hu-
the redesigned underground mine – which age Bill Act, ASX-listed junior Liontown man rights,” Muir told Paydirt after the
will be accessed via three portals – deliv- Resources Ltd and the Twijarl Aboriginal signing ceremony. “The problem with the
ered engineering as well as heritage ad- Corporation signed an innovative Native Act is the Minister is reserving his rights to
vantages. Title agreement which could serve as a destroy sacred sites and not allowing a re-
“Even though it is shallow – 400m at role model for future negotiations. view of his decisions; that is unacceptable
its deepest – there is lots of underground The revised Act was introduced to par- in this day and age. It is basically corralling
workings, allowing us to be selective which liament in the wake of the Juukan Gorge Traditional Owners into an outcome. We
is crucial when it comes to grade and impu- caves controversy which saw Rio Tinto Ltd don’t want a veto over development, we
rities,” Smits said. destroy areas of cultural and archaeologi- want capacity to say no to the destruction
cal significance in the Pilbara but despite of sacred sites.”
being passed through parliament in De- Muir said the agreement with Liontown
cember, Aboriginal land councils are split was a prime of example of a progressive
with some leaders criticising it. An open partnership.
letter signed by 150 Aboriginal cultural “This agreement is at the cutting edge
leaders and renowned Australians argued of what is happening in international eco-
the inclusion of ministerial intervention nomic finance,” he said. “We are delivering
powers meant it contravened United Na- impact through our sustainability frame-
tions treaty law. work which reflects the UN sustainability
National Native Tile Council chair and goals, bringing into effect free, prior and
Tjiwarl member Kado Muir participated in informed consent through our contract ne-
the Native Title agreement signing with gotiations.
Liontown but was highly critical of the WA “The difference is the capacity to en-
Government’s new Act. gage in a conversation. Other agreements
Liontown is attracting strong interest for
its SC6 product
Page 18 FeBRUaRY 2022 aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT
Exploration manager Jamie Day
explains the exploration strategy
to newly appointed Liontown non-
executive director Jenn Morris
Savannah general manager Bryan Watson has been integral in the restart and fostering the
culture between Panoramic employees and contractors Barminco and Primero
Ottaviano’s analysis of existing opera-
tions had highlighted the problems sur-
rounding dilution, particularly during ramp-
up.
“The issue with open pit lithium mining
is dilution; blasting creates heaving which
creates problems around grade and impuri-
ties,” he said. “Underground mining is se-
lective by nature; you just blast the stopes
and mine the pegmatite. It also helps the
economics. Instead of 30-40 haul trucks
in the open pit, we are talking 10-12 trucks
Tjiwarl elder Kado Muir and over a much shorter haul. It adds up to less
included things like gag clauses and limita- Liontown chairman Tom Goyder emissions, less people and a smaller foot-
tions on Traditional Owners to fully express sign the Kathleen Valley Native print. And, because you are straight into the
their desires. This agreement means we Title agreement high-grade material early on, you are max-
have this ability to not have a company imising value upfront.”
dictate how we use our benefits, how we The combination of strong heritage and
apply them to our community.” environmental impact credentials and lith-
The Tjiwarl Native Title group repre- ium’s role in decarbonisation should also
sents 11 families connected to an area of nificant adjustments to the mine design to see Liontown overcome another major
13,000sq km between Leinster and Wiluna. protect important heritage areas,” Goyder hurdle, the chronic skills shortage in the re-
As part of the agreement, Liontown has said. sources sector.
committed to a development strategy for The most significant change came in “Everyone talks about the employee val-
Kathleen Valley which includes land and mine design itself. After consultation, Lion- ue proposition and we have strong creden-
water management, Aboriginal heritage town dropped plans for a single open pit in tials in that regard,” Ottaviano said. “Lithium
management, cultural awareness and ac- favour of two small open pits and a larger is a future-facing commodity and we are
cess, social opportunities and develop- underground operation to avoid disrupting backing it with our company culture. We
ment, employment and contracting oppor- the Jones Creek sacred site. are not here to tell employees what we are
tunities and compensation. Muir said the Tjiwarl participated fully in going to do, we will tell them what we have
Liontown chairman Tim Goyder said the that process. already done. We’ve shown that with things
agreement sent a strong message “as to “We’ve taken an initial proposal which like the Native Title agreement.”
how resource companies can support, was going to be a massive open pit which In an age when an economic deposit is
respect and protect vital heritage and cul- would disrupt Jones Creek which is a sa- only one step in a project’s journey, Lion-
ture considerations” in resources develop- cred site and destroy a number of other town is fortunate to have defined its path
ments. sacred sites,” he said. “Infrastructure has clearly. Now, as Ottaviano says, it needs to
“We have worked very closely with their been redesigned to stay away from cul- stay on the straight and narrow.
senior negotiators and representatives tural areas and the mine itself has gone – Dominic Piper
throughout the Kathleen Valley feasibility underground. All of that basically is a re-
study process, making a number of sig- flection of the company being responsive.”
aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT FeBRUaRY 2022 Page 19
graphite nickel tin cobalt
copper lithium
manganese
vanadium rare earths
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coVeR
The Year
of the IPO
or the first time in 14 years, floats to be unsustainable, particularly Of the 106 new companies to undertake
F the number of new metals against a backdrop of labour shortages, a successful IPO in 2021, 76 were admit-
low contractor availability and increasing
ted to the ASX during the second half of
and mining companies admitted costs. the year, including 12 in December alone.
to the ASX exceeded three There does not appear to be an obvious The IPO Class of 2021 raised a col-
figures. Without question, 2021 slowing in the pipeline of new resources- lective $1.56 billion, with the EMR Capi-
tal-backed 29Metals Ltd ($527.8 million)
related IPOs, however, with at least 20
was the Year of the IPO. companies waiting to make their ASX de- comfortably the biggest contributor. Gold
but over the coming months. developer Tulla Resources plc was the
BDO global head of natural resources next best with a $78.3 million float, fol-
Sherif Andrawes is one who cannot see lowed by the likes of Genmin Ltd, Miner-
the heat coming out of the IPO market als 260 Ltd and Falcon Metals Ltd (all $30
t seemed no matter where you turned, anytime soon. million).
Ithere was no escaping a connection to “We still have a very healthy pipeline Andrawes said while the volume of
the plethora of new resources floats being going into 2022,” Andrawes told Paydirt. capital raised by IPO companies was not
spruiked. Whether it was an executive with “I struggle to go beyond three months at particularly surprising, the relative ease
an asset they wanted to list or spin off, or any time, whether it’s the strongest time or with which most were able to reach their
perhaps a longstanding family-owned min- the weakest time, but looking out to March funding targets was unlike any other year
ing services group sensing a rare opportu- and this first quarter we’re certainly going in recent memory.
nity to go public, everyone was positioning to see quite a few more companies listed. “It was certainly a surprise how con-
for a slice of the action in the most buoyant “Often when you’re going through these sistent it was, in that so many companies
of IPO markets. times of increased IPO activity, you’re managed to raise the money they needed
As with past IPO windows, the honey- thinking maybe it’ll last a few months, so quickly, often closing early or raising
moon period for the 106 companies which you’re never quite sure exactly how long. more than they were initially looking for,”
joined the bourse last year will eventually But we saw this run of IPOs continue right he said.
come to an end. Equity research firm Ar- through the year. In fact, it probably got “Quite a few of the IPOs we were work-
gonaut Securities Pty Ltd has already de- stronger as the year went on.” ing on, they were looking for a certain
clared the unprecedented volume of new
Page 22 FeBRUaRY 2022 aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT
“
92 Energy managing director Siobhan Often when
Lancaster and chairman Richard Pearce you’re going
declared the company’s shares open for through these times of
trade back in April. The uranium explorer “We were also very confident this would
was one of 106 new resources listings increased IPO activity, be a very unique story for the market in
in 2021 you’re thinking maybe Australia given that at the time there was
no other uranium company with assets
it’ll last a few months...
in the Athabasca Basin. We thought that
but we saw this run provided us with a competitive advantage
of IPOs continue right for listing, and it did.”
92E has hardly put a foot wrong since
number and then as they were going through the year. arriving on the ASX with its shares open-
through the process, saw the demand ing at a 75% premium to the standard 20c
was higher than they expected and ended issue price for a new listing. The com-
up raising more.” and take 92E through the IPO process, pany’s stock peaked as high as $1.15 in
Like Andrawes, Trevor Benson has ex- yellowcake prices were still very stagnant September on the back of the Gemini dis-
perienced many IPO cycles over his four and floating a uranium explorer focused covery, paving the way for a further $7.15
decades in the mining and finance indus- on Canada’s Athabasca Basin seemed a million to be raised via a placement which
tries. Last year he was instrumental in the bold move. was also heavily oversubscribed.
floats of nickel explorer Cannon Resourc- 92E finished the year as the fourth- In the absence of another new uranium
es Ltd and graphite developer Evolution best performing IPO, having made a ma- company to benchmark against, Lancas-
Energy Minerals Ltd. jor discovery from the fourth drill hole of ter said the success of other exploration
Benson, who now serves as chairman its maiden exploration campaign at the IPOs during the latter stages of 2020 had
of both companies, cannot recall a past Gemini project, with the uranium spot been a major factor in the decision to list
IPO market supported by such high com- price also climbing from $US30/lb to 92E.
modity prices across the board, head- $US45/lb over the course of 2021. Lan- “When you’re listing an exploration
lined by gold and iron ore during the first caster has since been promoted to the company, you want to know that the mar-
half of the year and rounded off by a large managing director’s chair. ket is strong and is going to be able to
appetite for nickel, copper and lithium on A key member of Extract Resources support you to do what you need to do,”
the back of their direct association with prior to its $2.2 billion takeover by China Lancaster said.
the burgeoning battery minerals space. General Nuclear Power Group, Lancas- “We had the support at the seed level
While the few iron ore companies to ter said there was never any trepidation and we knew we would have the sup-
list last year suffered an average drop in about bringing to market a story which port at the IPO level, but you also want to
share price of 22.8%, those with a focus Australian investors had not been ex- make sure you have the support post the
on battery minerals finished 2021 at the posed to for some time. IPO, and that really only happens when
top of the list with Kuniko Ltd (up 463%), “We’re all ex-uranium people from the the market is strong. The exploration
Lithium Energy Ltd (up 352%) and Global last round and so we were confident that market has been very strong over the last
Lithium Ltd (up 350%) crowned the best the market fundamentals were right and couple of years, it’s been building up to
market performers post IPO. that the Australian market knows urani- where it is now and we felt we could really
“Investors are looking for leverage to um,” she told Paydirt. leverage off that.”
these very strong commodity prices and
on top of that you have this enormous ap-
petite for battery metals which has only
grown since COP26,” Benson said.
“This battery metals market is very real,
whereas before I don’t think people really
believed in this incredibly high demand
which is coming for commodities like
graphite and nickel.”
Gold (41) was the dominant commod-
ity of choice among new listings in 2021,
followed by copper (19), nickel (11) and
lithium (eight). As expected, 83 of the
106 new IPOs have their primary project
based in Australia, including 54 in West-
ern Australia.
One company to buck both the com-
modity and jurisdiction trend was Can-
ada-focused 92 Energy Ltd (92E) which
became the first uranium explorer to list
on the ASX in a decade when it hit the
boards in April following an oversub-
scribed $7 million IPO.
When Siobhan Lancaster was ap-
proached to join the company as its inau-
gural chief executive in December 2020
Sherif Andrawes
aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT FeBRUaRY 2022 Page 23
coVeR
A greenfields discovery is rare
Investor support is critical both prior to Warburton said in itself but one so early in a
and post an IPO. To that end, Investabil- new companies
ity director Dannika Warburton says new must also con- company’s history is quite extraordinary
and g
floats with a story which can be differenti- sider how they “ets shareholders and everyone in
ated from others in a market awash with will engage with the company very, very excited about
IPOs will always catch the eye. shareholders and
“You’ve definitely got to have a compa- other investors the possibilities.
ny which is unique on top of your strengths once the IPO pro-
in terms of the people, the project and the cess is complete,
strategy, because if you can’t differentiate especially with the market still running hot version of the presentation,” she said. “I
why someone should invest in you over for new investment opportunities. think it’s really important for companies
somebody else, then it’s going to be a “The pre-IPO phase is just the founda- to be creating their own content so they
hard sell,” she said. tion or the stepping stone for a company can put their narrative out to the market.
“There also has to be an element of because the main work really begins post We’re increasingly seeing that the cover-
what the market likes at the moment. It’s listing where you really have to engage age of small cap companies is dwindling
definitely been easier to sell a battery with your longer-term shareholders on an in the traditional media and so in a space
metals play more than something that’s ongoing basis for the company to be suc- which is very, very crowded, it’s important
not in the clean energy space. Markets cessful,” she said. for companies to be taking control of their
can move on very fast and lose interest The importance of digital and social me- own narrative that can be rapidly shared
if you’re not focused on something which dia also cannot be understated, Warbur- online.”
is current.” ton added. Almost all of the new metals Given her own background in corporate
Investability clients raised a collective and mining listings over the past year have relations, Lancaster has made sharehold-
$352 million last year, of which $61 million a Twitter and/or LinkedIn account, with er engagement one of her top priorities
was specific to IPOs. The Sydney-based many posting video content on a regular alongside overseeing 92E’s current winter
investor relations firm also supported the basis to keep shareholders updated on drilling programme at Gemini. The compa-
float of ChemX Materials Ltd, one of the their progress. ny recently resumed a 6,600m campaign,
first new listings of 2022. “Video has become the modern day with one drill rig focused on the Gemini
Mineralised Zone where the discovery
was made and another targeting potential
extensions and regional prospects.
While a resource looms as the obvious
next major milestone for 92E, Lancaster
is unashamedly looking towards a poten-
tially bigger future for the company.
“A greenfields discovery is rare in itself
but one so early in a company’s history is
quite extraordinary and gets shareholders
and everyone in the company very, very
excited about the possibilities,” she said.
“Obviously we need to follow up on
that discovery and the truth serum will be
in the drill bit. If we can be successful in
this initial programme and follow that up
with some pretty aggressive drilling, which
we have the money to be able to do, then
hopefully we can delineate a resource if
there’s one to be delineated.
“The dream is do a repeat of Extract…it
would be amazing if we can repeat that in
the Athabasca Basin.”
There were also a number of spin-outs
among the IPO Class of 2021, including
Cannon and Evolution Energy. Cannon
is the new home for Rox Resources Ltd’s
former Fisher East and Collurabbie nickel
projects in WA, while Evolution Energy
has picked up from where Marvel Gold
Ltd (formerly Graphex) paused the Chilalo
graphite project in Tanzania upon hitting a
major development funding hurdle in early
2020.
Lancaster with technical director Steve Blower on site at 92 Energy’s Gemini project in
Canada’s Athabasca Basin. In September, the company announced a major uranium
discovery from just the fourth drill hole of its maiden exploration campaign
Page 24 FeBRUaRY 2022 aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT
ed as recently as lithium contacts and acquired tenements
the start of 2020.” next door to Core Lithium Ltd’s Finniss
One of the more project in the Northern Territory. Initial
peculiar entrants samples containing up to 1.61% lithium
to the ASX last and 223 ppm tantalum skyrocketed the
year was Australa- company’s stock to a peak of 92.5c.
sian Gold. Led by Given the company’s newfound suc-
Chinese-Australian cess in lithium, it rebranded as Australa-
businessman Dr sian Metals Ltd but there are no plans to
Qingtao Zeng, the ditch the gold just yet.
company was origi- “I think one of the benefits of being a
nally established to junior is it’s easier for you to switch from
introduce Chinese different commodities,” Zeng told Paydirt.
gold assets to the “We recognised this opportunity is on va-
Australian market cant land, at no cost to us, that’s why we
but that plan was
scuppered due to
the ongoing trade I get confused
dispute between “
the two countries. why people
Zeng then are buying at 20c and
reached out to
some of his con- then dump it at 18c
nections in the or 16c on the second
lithium industry, day; you don’t even
having previously
brokered several give time for the
deals between company to perform.
Australian miners
and Chinese end-
users. He picked acted on it. And we’ve had some early
up the May Queen wins right now.
gold project in “If there was a cost, we cannot do this.
Queensland from We want to create value for shareholders
AIM-listed Iron- with a free ticket.”
Trevor Benson Ridge Resources Zeng, who also floated Canadian lithium
(now Atlantic Lithi- explorer Winsome Resources Ltd later in
um Ltd) and used it the year, said he struggled get a read on
Benson said both Cannon and Evo- to float the company as a dedicated gold the expectations of some IPO investors.
lution Energy were prime examples of explorer. “I get confused why people are buying
boards recognising non-core projects Unfortunately for Zeng, a lukewarm at 20c and then dump it at 18c or 16c on
carried greater value for shareholders if response from the market saw Australa- the second day; you don’t even give time
given priority inside a different vehicle. sian’s shares slip as low as 12.5c despite for the company to perform,” he said.
“When you have contrasting focuses honouring everything in the prospectus “Some IPOs will drop down lower than
in the same company, management will for the first three months. the IPO price simply because there’s so
inevitably choose one over the other at Zeng decided to reach out again to his many choices right now.”
some point,” Benson told Paydirt.
“In the case of Cannon, Rox has a gold
focus and even though Fisher East has
a 78,000t nickel resource, there’s scarce
resources of funding to advance two pro-
jects and one ends up being the poor
cousin. We’ve now given those nickel as-
sets a new lease of life under the Cannon
roof and the team led by Steve Lynn has
delivered shareholder value in spades.
“Similarly with Evolution, Graphex made
the move into gold but now that graphite
has come back and there’s a boom mar-
ket for battery metals, we saw an oppor-
tunity to raise $22 million, pay back the
debt that was hanging over the project
and bring in a new sustainable ESG fund
out of Europe. You’re not going to find too
many graphite IPOs with a DFS complet-
Dr Qingtao Zeng
aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT FeBRUaRY 2022 Page 25
coVeR
West Cobar Metals listed on the ASX on October 1 with a clear strategy to test an
underexplored portion of the prolific mineral district in New South Wales
“ The market is really buoyant and everyone’s
got a higher risk appetite so people are actually
ready to take the chance now more than ever to step
up into an MD role
Andrawes agreed it was difficult for in- portion of the famed Cobar mineral district world the company would have completed
vestors and others in the industry to keep in New South Wales. its IPO several months earlier and “not be-
up with the constant stream of IPOs, sug- Upon listing on the first day of Octo- come one of the crowd”.
gesting it was as important as ever for ber, West Cobar had the drill rigs turning “The timing has been good in terms of
companies to be clear about their strat- at Bulla Park, one of four projects in the base metal prices and appetite, but I think
egy and honour the commitments made company’s portfolio, all to the west of the we were about 3-4 months too late,” he
by those who backed the float in the first township. Most of the main discoveries said. “Part of that was because the ASX
instance. and mining operations in the region are requires 50% of an asset to be owned and
“I get calls to go and work on so many located to the east. we were delayed a bit with some of the
transactions, whether it’s an expert’s re- West Cobar chief executive David Pas- option agreements for the West Desert
port for takeovers, etc and I’ll not have a coe attributed some of the reaction to de- acquisition.
clue what company they’re talking about lays in completing the proposed drilling. “You can feel the fatigue in the market
because it’s either a new company or “We did intend to drill at Mt Jack before for the small end of town and that’s what
they’ve changed their name; it can be Christmas but we had record rainfall in we’re fighting against. We’re competing
hard and some of them have very similar that part of NSW unfortunately and there’s with a lot of other companies, hence we
names,” Andrawes said. a river we have to cross so we were un- opened a bit lower than what the IPO
“That’s why I think’s it’s vital companies able to get in when we wanted to, but we’ll was, but we’re not alone. There’s no alarm
set the strategy early, remembering that pick that up again in the new year and bells, we’ll stick to what we told investors
investors invest in an IPO for a reason and continue as planned,” Pascoe said. and things will rebound quite strongly, I
it’s generally going to be because you’re “Our share price dropped a little bit believe.”
wanting to achieve a specific goal in your [since the IPO] because I think it was an- The abundance of IPOs has also
prospectus, when and how you’re going to ticipated that we would have been much opened the door for many people such
achieve that goal and being true to that. more advanced than we are. It’s really as O’Neill to step up and take on their first
“If you are going to change your strate- only going to take one good hit, either at senior executive role.
gy, make sure that you have good reasons Mt Jack or at Cawkers Hill. Things change Analysis from Perth-based executive
for it. Again, remembering back to your pretty quickly once you start getting re- recruitment firm Acacia found 19 of the
prospectus; there’s a reason why people sults the market likes.” 47 managing director/chief executive ap-
put the money in, this is what they want While a dozen new floats were added pointments in the metals and mining in-
to see and keep them updated on those to the bourse in the final month of 2021, dustry over the final six months of last year
timeframes. No surprises is really impor- there was a sense of IPO fatigue by the were first-timers. In WA alone, there were
tant.” time American West Metals Ltd manag- 15 newcomers among 33 total executive
Staying the course is exactly what the ing director Dave O’Neill was ringing the appointments.
team behind West Cobar Metals Ltd plans trademark bell at the ASX. Acacia director Abbi Vermey said never
to do. Like Australasian, the company Despite plenty of hype in the lead-up before had so many first-timers taken on
endured a tepid reaction to its initial ex- to the listing ceremony, American West the top job of an IPO company.
ploration results but remains focused on shares dipped as low as 11.5c in the first “The market is really buoyant and eve-
proving up what it believes is an untapped week of trade. O’Neill said in an ideal ryone’s got a higher risk appetite so peo-
Page 26 FeBRUaRY 2022 aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT
ple are actually ready to take the chance
now more than ever to step up into an
MD role,” Vermey told Paydirt.
“People are also moving around more
than ever at executive level. We’re see-
ing a lot of people moving roles, where-
as I reckon only 2-3 years ago it was
really hard to get an executive to move
from their current role. The buoyancy of
the market has definitely aided people
wanting to move into different roles.”
While the increased number of first-
time executives leading IPOs is widely
applauded, Andrawes said it was impor-
tant to have the right amount of expe-
rienced heads involved in the company
as well.
“If you’ve got someone who’s done
it before – and most of these do have
at least one or two people on the board
who have been there before and are
quite experienced – then they know 29Metals was the largest resources IPO of 2021, pulling in $527.8 million. Backed by
what life is like in the listed space,” he EMR Capital, the company operates the Golden Grove (pictured) and Capricorn
said. Copper mines
“It’s important to have good, experienced
people around you, particularly CFOs, “It comes back to that strategy and performance is crucial as you’re always
company secretaries, non-executive di- understanding beforehand and making going to need to raise money again.
rectors, who can give you guidance…be- sure everybody in the team knows what You want to size the offer to make sure
cause life in the listed space is quite differ- life is going to be like for that first year af- you can achieve key catalysts and mile-
ent to life outside the listed space. ter listing. You don’t want to find yourself stones but also ensure there is excess
in a position of raising demand and you are not taking every
the money and then dollar.”
wondering what to do While market commentators can be
with it afterwards.” critical of IPO companies for not com-
Inevitably, the hon- manding enough capital to see out the
eymoon period will first few years, only 26 of the 106 new
come to an end quick- listings last year raised $5 million or less.
ly for some IPO com- Brooke said it was advantageous for
panies and some will new floats to not take hold of everything
need to tap the market offered to them and work towards a mile-
again to keep their pro- stone which creates a pathway towards
jects ticking over. another capital raising, as 92E and Aus-
Morgans corporate tralasian have subsequently done on the
advisory director Ste- back of their respective exploration suc-
phen Brooke recom- cesses.
mended engaging with “It’s about finding the balance be-
fund managers early in tween raising enough to deliver these
the process to map out re-rating events whilst not compromising
a plan of attack for the on the IPO performance by raising too
first few years of public much, too early,” he said.
life. As was the case for the record-break-
“The more corporate ing IPO Class of 2007 which the current
history a lead manag- intake went ever so close to emulating,
er has with projects, only time will tell how many of these com-
management and the panies have banked the right amount of
register the better,” funding and laid the proper foundations
he said. “It also pro- to see out the favourable conditions for
vides more runway to new floats.
engage with investors – Michael Washbourne
and build momentum.
American West managing director Dave O’Neill (right) It’s always a lot harder
and non-executive director Michael Anderson at the from a standing start.
company’s listing ceremony. O’Neill is one of several first- “For junior explor-
time executives at the helm of an IPO company ers, IPO aftermarket
aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT FeBRUaRY 2022 Page 27
IPOS
Century up for IPOs as
hard borders and EVs
define the year
aydirt’s annual IPO review of 2019 spanned just four pages, dedicated to the five
Pcompanies which listed during the year. For 2021, the scenario is very different with
more than 100 resources companies hitting the bourse.
So, what does the Class of 2021 bring that 2019 didn’t? Paydirt picks its way through
the new listings numbers to find the trends, fashions and developments which have led
to the busiest IPO market in more than a decade.
My head is spinning Even by usual standards, the geographic dominance of WA was
noticeable across the board. Sixty of the new listings had assets
within Australia’s largest state, hardly surprising given the tradi-
When it came to the style of new float, spin-outs were a tional factors of size and prospectivity but also influenced by the
strong theme throughout 2021. State Government’s hard border policy. With companies unable
Investors have shown a thirst for quality stories but for companies to travel outside the confines of the State for most of the last two
such as Chalice Mining Ltd, Marvel Gold Ltd, Strike Resources years, management teams have favoured on their backyard over
Ltd, Liontown Resources Ltd (itself a spin-out from Chalice) and more distant lands.
Rox Resources Ltd, the rampant market created an opportunity
to create value for assets which had fallen off their radar. Several
proved highly success with Chalice spin-out Falcon Metals Ltd
raising $30 million and Marvel spin-out Evolution Energy Minerals
Ltd raising $22 million.
In all, there were 13 IPOs demerged from parent companies
with non-core assets. With access to ground difficult and com-
modity prices still strong, it could be that more companies are
digging through the portfolios looking for an IPO-worthy col-
lection of projects.
Golden WA
Prospective listings could consider any amount of exotic
minerals but if you needed to raise a minimum amount with
a good spread, gold in WA was your go to.
That may sound cynical but 10 of the new floats listed with a
pure WA gold focus. In total, 68 of the new IPOs boasted gold
prospects.
Page 28 FeBRUaRY 2022 aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT
Copper surge sends
money north
After only matching Victoria in 2020, New South Wales at-
tracted renewed interest from explorers in 2021 with 14
companies listing with assets in the State, largely based on
copper and copper-gold targets. Copper’s popularity was also
reflected in Queensland-focused floats (9) while South Australia
(5) enjoyed a welcome revival as well.
Where’s the big money
floats?
Although volumes were up, values were flat when it came
to capital raisings. 29Metals Ltd’s $527.8 million IPO towered
over the rest of the market with Tulla Resources plc’s $77 mil-
lion the next largest. Eighty-three of the companies raised $10
million or less, perhaps showing both the difficulty in accessing
high-quality advanced assets but also the market’s appetite for
early-stage exploration stories.
Links to Africa... and North Among the larger IPOs, 260 Minerals Ltd ($30 million) and Fal-
con ($30 million) tapped into the market’s love for Tim Goyder
and Latin America companies, having been spun out of the highly successful Lion-
town and Chalice, respectively.
After several years of hiatus, overseas assets were back in
vogue among new floats. Africa was the focus of seven IPOs Building to a
with North America attracting the same number and Latin Ameri-
ca just one behind with six. Other regions to attract funding in the Christmas rush
IPO market were Europe (4), Asia (2) and New Zealand (1).
That Africa would return so strongly – 2021 saw more IPOs from What started as a trickle in the first half of the year – 33
the region than any year from the last decade – perhaps reflects between January and June – became a flood in the second half
both prospectivity for key minerals such as gold, lithium and rare with July (16), September (14), October (13), November (13) and
earths as well as investor sentiment in light of the success of December (12) all posting double-digit listings. With dozens more
West African Resources Ltd, Perseus Mining Ltd and Predictive companies failing to get out of the starting gate in time, it could be
Discovery Ltd.
that 2022 is a mirror image of 2021.
The battery pack
Is the precious metal about to be usurped? WA has always
been known as the home of gold and iron ore but with the rush
for battery materials copper, nickel, and more importantly lithium,
have risen to investor attention.
The year saw 20 companies list with lithium and/or graphite as
the main commodity. A further 37 had copper front and centre
while a remarkable 23 declared themselves to be exploring for
nickel. PGMs were also in the mix with companies eager to emu-
late Chalice’s Julimar discovery and even uranium made a return
with 92 Energy Ltd.
Iron ore’s strong start to 2021 prompted six companies to list
while zinc’s strong end coincided with nine companies listing
base metals assets.
aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT FeBRUaRY 2022 Page 29
IPos
29Metals Ltd 92 Energy Ltd
ASX: 29M ASX: 92E
Listing date: July 2 Listing date: April 15
IPO amount: $527.8 million IPO amount: $7 million
Share price range since listing: Share price range since listing:
$1.90-$3.23 21.5c-$1.15
Address: Level 2, 150 Collins St, Address: Level 3, 16 Milligan St, Perth
Melbourne VIC 3000 WA 6000
Tel: +61 3 7037 5300 Tel: +61 8 9322 7600
Website: www.29metals.com Website: www.92energy.com
Social media: @29Metals Social media: @92_energy
Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Albion Resources Ltd
Key personnel: Owen Hegarty OAM Key personnel: Richard Pearce
(chair), Peter Albert (managing director) (chairman), Siobhan Lancaster ASX: ALB
Focus: Copper and precious metals, (managing director) Listing date: April 30
WA and Queensland Focus: Uranium, Canada
IPO amount: $5 million
Comment: Comment: Share price range since listing: 16-34.5c
Comfortably the year’s largest resources The first new uranium explorer to hit the Address: Level 11 London House, 216 St
float and the biggest new base metals listing boards since the Fukushima incident in George’s Tce, Perth WA 6005
in almost two decades. 29Metals is the new 2011, offering Australian investors rare Tel: +61 8 9481 0389
home for the Golden Grove (WA, below) exposure to Canada’s prolific Athabasca
and Capricorn Copper (Queensland) mining Basin. Shares in the company jumped more Website: www.albionresources.com.au
operations after several years under private than 280% in September on the back of a Email: [email protected]
ownership with EMR Capital. The revered major discovery at its Gemini project (above Key personnel: Colin Locke (executive
private equity outfit retains exposure to both right) from just the fourth hole drilled as part chairman), Mark Major (non-executive
assets via a 45% major shareholding in the of its maiden exploration campaign. director)
Owen Hegarty-chaired company.
Focus: Base metals, WA
Comment:
After a slow start to life on the ASX, Albion
quickly gathered momentum once the drill
rigs began turning at both its Lennard Shelf
zinc-lead and Leinster nickel-copper projects
during the second half of 2021. The company
kicked off exploration at Lennard Shelf in
October after signing a landmark Native Title,
heritage protection and mineral exploration
agreement with the Gooniyandi Aboriginal
Corporation. Maiden RC drilling at Leinster
followed in late November targeting the same
ultramafic host rocks as those found at Au-
roch Minerals Ltd’s nearby Horn prospect.
The Reliable
Choice for
Exploration
Drilling
Page 30 FeBRUaRY 2022 aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT
Exploration Geotechnical Shallow Multipurpose
Diamond Drilling Angle RC Drilling
Drilling Drilling
Almonty Industries Inc
ASX: AII
Listing date: August 2
IPO amount: $15.52 million
Share price range since listing:
84c-$1.08
Address: Suite 5700, 100 King Street
West, Toronto Canada M5X 1C7
Tel: +1 (647) 438-9766
Website: www.almonty.com
Social media: @Almonty_ (managing director, above), Beau
Email: [email protected] Alvo Minerals Ltd Nicholls (non-executive director)
Key personnel: Lewis Black (president Focus: Gold and base metals, Brazil
& CEO) ASX: ALV
Focus: Tungsten in South Korea, Spain Listing date: October 20 Comment:
and Portugal Seasoned geologists Rob Smakman and
IPO amount: $10 million Beau Nicholls have returned to Brazil with
Comment: Share price range since listing: 25.5-47c Alvo, which is the Portuguese word for “tar-
One of the world’s largest tungsten players Address: Level 4, 100 Albert Road, get”. The company’s flagship asset is the Pal-
quietly joined the ASX in August, comple- South Melbourne VIC 3205 ma VMS project which has been sporadically
menting its existing listing on the TSX. The Tel: +61 3 9692 7222 explored since the 1970s. Alvo last month
company already produces tungsten from two expanded its search area by 3,568ha after
mines in Spain and Portugal but the jewel in Website: www.alvo.com.au winning a Brazilian National Mining Agency
the crown is its future operation at Shandong Social media: @AlvoMinerals auction for two exploration permits adjacent to
in South Korea. First production is touted for Email: [email protected] its existing tenure. It comes after the company
Q4 2022 once final permits are received, after Key personnel: Graeme Slattery (non- initiated a fixed-loop EM survey late last year
which Almonty will account for about 30% of executive chairman), Rob Smakman and secured an additional diamond rig for its
the global tungsten production outside China. upcoming 10,000m drilling campaign.
Seismic Drilling Australia runs a highly experienced and efficient drilling
operation which caters for its’ clients’ needs, the safety and wellbeing of its
highly skilled workforce, and on delivering a service with low fuss and minimal
environmental impact.
Seismic Drilling Australia is Australia’s first indigenous owned and operated
multipurpose drilling contractor and a Supply Nation registered indigenous provider.
Phone: +61 8 9302 6777 Email: [email protected]
Web: seismicdrilling.com.au
aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT FeBRUaRY 2022 Page 31
IPos One of the final new listings of 2021, American West
has started its maiden drilling programme at West
Desert in Utah
West is best for
intrepid geo
merican West Metals Ltd managing Tintic skarn and carbonate replacement de- the dial for investors.”
Adirector Dave O’Neill boldly describes posits were about 17mt, so in terms of scale O’Neill also sees a potential near-term
the amount of upside at the company’s flag- we’re already bigger,” O’Neill told Paydirt. development opportunity for the company’s
ship West Desert project in Utah as “spine- “None of these porphyries have been Copper Warrior project which is just 15km
tingling” despite the complex polymetallic drilled out. There’s a copper-molybdenum from Lisbon Valley, Utah’s second largest
deposit already boasting close to 60mt in porphyry, we’ve got high-grade copper and copper mine.
resource. molybdenum veins at depth where we in- It is understood that most of the key pits
Containing a healthy mix of zinc, cop- tersect the skarn and we’ve got drill holes at Lisbon Valley have been exhausted and
per and silver, as well as the world’s larg- along strike from the deposit that have high- new sources of ore are required to keep the
est undeveloped resource of indium, West grade copper, zinc and lead mineralisation, mill ticking over. O’Neill believes Copper
Desert is situated in the heartland of the and some silver. We know this will expand Warrior presents the next best option.
Sevier orogenic belt which is home to the because these things traditionally form in “You’ve got one side of the valley where
large Bingham Canyon copper deposit and clusters. they’ve got their deposits and across the
prolific Tintic mining district. “West Desert is attached to other parts other side we’ve got exactly the same min-
American West acquired 100% of the of the porphyry…and where it comes in ing units exposed at our project,” O’Neill
project – described in the company’s pro- contact you have also got skarn mineralisa- said.
spectus as a large zinc-polymetallic skarn tion. It’s actually spine-tingling the amount “It’s going to be a volume equation. If
and carbonate replacement deposit – from of upside.” we’ve got the volume there and we can
a cash-strapped Canadian explorer. The O’Neill and his St George Mining Ltd show some resources fairly quickly, then
historical resource contains a high-grade chairman and colleague John Prineas are Lisbon Valley will need ore so there’s a
core of 16.5mt @ 6.3% zinc, 0.3% copper the founders of American West, which list- potential commercial opportunity for us.
and 33 g/t indium which O’Neill believes ed on the ASX in December. West Desert is Rather than build a plant, we can potentially
could represent the “true value” of the as- one of three assets in the company’s port- send it down the road because we hear
set. folio alongside Copper Warrior (Utah) and they’re desperate.”
However, being a geologist, O’Neill can- Storm-Seal (Nunavut, Canada). Like West Desert, exploration at the
not help but draw comparisons between the West Desert was brought to the pair’s Storm-Seal copper-zinc project in the
current resource numbers at the undevel- attention while undertaking due diligence north of Canada has been limited over re-
oped West Desert and its more established on potential acquisition opportunities for cent years due to both funding issues and
neighbours. St George as part of a business develop- weather constraints.
“The skarn attached to the porphyry at ment partnership with nickel miner Western Boasting both a high-grade copper dis-
Bingham Canyon was only 45mt and the Areas Ltd. However, it was decided any in- covery (Storm) and zinc deposit (Seal), the
terest in North America would be better off project is proximal to the longstanding Po-
American West Metals Ltd housed in a new vehicle, allowing the origi- laris lead-zinc mine and is serviced by two
nal company to remain focused on nickel
drill rigs and a 35-man camp.
ASX: AW1 exploration in Western Australia. O’Neill insisted American West had the
American West began a 7,500m dia- available resources to keep all projects
Listing date: December 13 mond drilling programme at West Desert ticking over in parallel, with programmes
IPO amount: $15 million last month, with results to be used to update in each jurisdiction to be dictated by the re-
Share price range since listing: the resource to JORC reporting standards spective weather seasons.
“West Desert is going to be continuous
before undertaking detailed mining studies.
11.5-17.5c O’Neill said the company would look to news; exploration and development, and
Address: Level 2, 28 Ord Street, West complete what the previous owners could Copper Warrior and Storm-Seal will dove-
Perth WA 6005 not due to a lack of available funding for Ca- tail into that,” he said.
Tel: +61 8 6109 6653 nadian explorers at the time. “The seasonal nature of Storm and Seal
Website: www.americanwestmetals.com “They could only raise enough money to is a no-brainer, we can only do that in the
Social media: @AmericanWest_ drill every 2-3 years so when you’re trying Arctic summer at this point, but it’s effective-
to expand a 60mt deposit and you can only
ly a turnkey operation. We’ll be using Apex
Email: [email protected] drill five holes, you’re obviously not going to Geoscience who have the geologists, the
Key personnel: John Prineas (non- add much value, even though they did,” he drillers, the camp managers, etc. We give
executive chairman), Dave O’Neill said. them the programme and they execute it
(managing director), Michael Anderson “This is the value I see at West Desert 100%. They know the project well, they’ve
(non-executive director) – they [previous owners] drilled five holes been working up there for the last 10 years.”
Focus: Copper and zinc, US and Canada and four of them were outside the re- – Michael Washbourne
source and had high-grade intersections.
But they could only drill every two years
which is not going to be enough to move
Page 32 FeBRUaRY 2022 aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT
exploration campaign just hours after
Arcadia Minerals Ltd debuting on the ASX. Armada plans to test Auric Mining Ltd
high-priority EM conductors positioned
ASX: AM7 along the 25km prospective strike of the ASX: AWJ
Libonga-Matchiti trend which has never
Listing date: June 25 been previously explored for nickel and
IPO amount: $6.4 million copper. The company’s technical team is
Share price range since listing: headlined by the likes of Thomas Rogers
16.5-33.5c and Douglas Haynes who are universally
Address: Suite 7, 63 Shepperton Road, recognised for discovering the large Kamoa
Victoria Park WA 6100 deposit in the DRC.
Tel: +61 8 6158 9990
Website: arcadiaminerals.global
Social media: @arcadiaminltd
Email: [email protected]
Key personnel: Jurie Wessels
(executive chairman), Philip Le Roux
(chief executive)
Focus: Tantalum, nickel and lithium,
Namibia
Comment:
It was a big year for the Namibian-focused
battery metals hopeful, which followed
up its ASX debut in June with entry to the
Frankfurt Stock Exchange in November.
A maiden resource of 1.2mt @ 412 ppm
tantalum, 76 ppm niobium and 0.29% Askari Metals Ltd
lithium for the Swanson project was also
delineated between listings, along with ASX: AS2
bench-scale metallurgical test work which
has indicated potential for production of Listing date: July 7
a plus-20% tantalum concentrate. High IPO amount: $5.7 million Listing date: February 12
grades were also returned from a grab IPO amount: $7.25 million
sample programme at the Karibib copper- Share price range since listing: 16-27c Share price range since listing: 9.5-30c
gold project in the Damara belt which hosts Address: 17 Lacey Street, Perth WA Address: Level 1, 1 Tully Road, East
the prolific Tsumeb mine. 6000 Perth WA 6004
Tel: +61 400 408 878 Tel: +61 8 6155 9046
Website: askarimetals.com
Armada Metals Ltd Website: auricmining.com.au
Social media: @AskariMetals Social media: @AuricMining
ASX: AMM Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected]
Key personnel: Robert Downey
Listing date: December 15 (chairman), Brendan Cummins Key personnel: Mark English (managing
IPO amount: $10 million (technical director) director), John Utley (technical director)
Share price range since listing: 12-17c Focus: Gold and copper-gold, NSW - above - Steve Morris (non-executive
chair)
Address: 151 Macquarie St, Sydney and WA Focus: Gold, WA
NSW 2000
Tel: +61 2 9048 8856 Comment: Comment:
Website: armadametals.com.au Originally incorporated as a copper and A 15-year friendship between finance guru
gold explorer with projects in WA and
Social media: @ArmadaMetals NSW, Askari caught the eye of investors Mark English and his geologist neighbour
Email: [email protected] just before the Christmas/New Year break John Utley saw the pair trade barbecues
and dinner parties for drill rigs and staking
Key personnel: Ross McGowan when lithium minerals were identified in pegs in the Widgiemooltha gold district.
(managing director), Rick Anthon (non- rock specimens collected from Red Peak, Auric acquired the project, which includes
executive chairman), Martin Holland just north of Meekatharra, during an initial the flagship Munda tenements, from Es-
(non-executive director, above right) reconnaissance visit. Follow-up rock and trella Resources Ltd and has subsequently
soil sampling work was to be completed
Focus: Nickel-copper, Gabon last month, along with a drone magnetic increased its ground holding with additional
survey at the Horry copper-gold project, purchases from Mincor Resources NL and
Comment: about 90km south-west of Halls Creek. The Neometals Ltd. The company is expected
A 3,000m diamond drilling programme company also recently appointed Johan to soon unveil an upgrade to its existing
was due to begin at the time of print at the Lambrechts as vice-president of exploration resource base of 220,000oz.
Nyanga project in southern Gabon, with and geology, and is expected to transition to
the company signing up leading contrac- the role of chief executive.
tor Boart Longyear to oversee its maiden
aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT FeBRUaRY 2022 Page 33
IPos
East. Mining resumed at Anthill early last
Aurum Resources Ltd month after the company inked a three-year Australian Gold & Copper Ltd
contract with services provider Thiess.
ASX: AUE ASX: AGC
Listing date: November 2 Australasian Metals Ltd Listing date: January 20
IPO amount: $5 million IPO amount: $10 million
Share price range since listing: ASX: A8G Share price range since listing: 9-23.5c
16.5-26c Address: Suite 7, 55 Hampden Road,
Address: Suite 2 Level 1, 1 Altona Nedlands, WA 6009
Street, West Perth WA 6005 Tel: +61 8 9322 6009
Tel: +61 8 6559 1792 Website: austgoldcopper.com.au
Website: aurumres.com.au Social media: @AustralianLtd
Social media: @AurumResources Email: [email protected]
Email: [email protected] Key personnel: David Richardson
Key personnel: Joshua Letcher (non- (chairman), Glen Diemar (managing
executive chairman), Troy Flannery director)
(non-executive director) Focus: Gold, NSW
Focus: Gold, WA
Comment:
Comment: Spun out of Magmatic Resources Ltd early
Orlando Drilling has been booked for the last year, the company quickly launched
imminent maiden RC programme at Penny into a 7,000m drilling programme across a
South. A total of 18 holes for about 6,000m suite of non-porphyry gold and base metals
have been planned based on exploring the targets in the Central Lachlan Fold Belt of
existing down-hole geology and analytical NSW. Having achieved moderate success
results. An aircore programme at Ryans over the course of 2021, AGC rounded
Find remains subject to heritage negotia- out the year with NSW ministerial approval
tions and POW approval, with about 80 for 840sq km of Cobar Basin exploration
holes for up to 4,000m planned. Harmec Listing date: May 13 licences. The company indicated several
Drilling has been booked for this work. IPO amount: $5.5 million Cobar-style targets already existed within
Share price range since listing: the new tenure and it hoped to emulate the
ongoing discovery success of several major
Austral Resources 12.5-92.5c copper miners in the district.
Australia Ltd Address: Unit 34, Level 5, 123B Colin St,
West Perth WA 6005
ASX: AR1 Tel: +61 8 6507 3082
Listing date: November 3 Website: australasiangold.com
IPO amount: $30 million Social media: @A8G_ASX
Share price range since listing: 15-22c Email: [email protected]
Address: Suite 902, Level 9, 60 Edward Key personnel: Dr Qingtao Zeng
Street, Brisbane QLD 4000 (managing director)
Tel: +61 7 3520 2500 Focus: Gold and lithium, Queensland,
WA and Northern Territory
Website: australres.com
Social media: @AustralLimited Comment:
Email: [email protected] Initially established as a vehicle to intro-
Key personnel: Phillip Thomas (non- duce Chinese gold assets to the Australian
executive chairman), Steve Tambanis market, the company debuted as Australa-
(chief executive) sian Gold with a focus on the May Queen
and Mt Clermont projects in Queensland.
Focus: Copper, Queensland However, managing director Qingtao
Zeng’s reputation as a lithium wheeler and Australian Rare Earths Ltd
Comment: dealer saw the company make a slight
An unheralded copper cathode producer, pivot towards the battery mineral and enjoy ASX: AR3
Austral purchased the Lady Annie opera- instant success on the back of a discov-
tions from its predecessor CST Minerals ery at Mt Peake in the Northern Territory. Listing date: July 1
in July 2019. Lady Annie has been an Subsequently rebranded as Australasian IPO amount: $12 million
operational mine for more than a decade Metals, the company recently acquired 90%
and produces up to 30,000 tpa from four of a substantial lithium package in the North Share price range since listing:
open pits. Prior to listing, Austral completed Arunta pegmatite province. 40c-$1.35
open pits at Lady Brenda East and West Address: Level 7, 19 Grenfell Street,
and cutbacks at Flying Horse South and Adelaide SA 5000
Page 34 FeBRUaRY 2022 aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT
Tel: 1300 646 100 Website: bartongold.com.au
Website: ar3.com.au Ballymore Resources Ltd Social media: @bartongoldBGD
Social media: @AR3Limited ASX: BTM Email: [email protected]
Email: [email protected] Key personnel: Mark Connelly (non-
Key personnel: Dudley Kingsnorth Listing date: September 3 executive chairman), Alexander
(non-executive chairman, below left), IPO amount: $7 million Scanlon (managing director), Richard
Don Hyma (managing director) Share price range since listing: 14-45c Crookes (non-executive director)
Focus: Rare earths, South Australia and Address: Suite 606, Level 6, 10 Market Focus: Gold, South Australia
Victoria Street, Brisbane QLD 4000
Tel: +61 7 3212 6255 Comment:
Comment: The new home for the longstanding
Renowned rare earths expert Dudley Website: ballymoreresources.com Tarcoola and Tunkillia gold projects in
Kingsnorth was lured out of semi-retirement Social media: South Australia’s Gawler Craton. Barton
to champion the development of poten- Email: [email protected] came to the market with some 1.1 moz gold
tially the first ionic clay-hosted rare earths Key personnel: Nick Jorss (chairman), in resources and an infrastructure package
mine outside of China and Myanmar. The David A-Izzeddin (technical director), which includes a 650,000 tpa CIP process
company’s Koppamurra project straddles Andrew Gilbert (operations director) plant and 240-person village. The com-
the border of South Australia and Victoria pany has earmarked more than 20,000m
and boasts an inferred resource of 39.9mt Focus: Gold and base metals, of drilling will be completed over the next
@ 725 ppm TREO. Results from both hand Queensland 12 months, with several resource updates
auger and push tube core drilling have expected as the projects are taken through
continued to turn up encouraging numbers Comment: feasibility and into development.
ahead of a likely resource upgrade this Rounded out its first full quarter on the
year. Shortly after the listing, the company bourse by completing the first three holes Bastion Minerals Ltd
announced veteran mining engineer Don across two key targets at the Ravenswood
Hyma had been appointed managing direc- gold project. Two diamond holes were ASX: BMO
tor following an extensive search for an punched into the Seventy Mile Mount
Adelaide-based chief. breccia-hosted gold target for a total of
654m, while drilling at the Matthews Pin- Listing date: March 16
nacle porphyry copper-gold target is funded IPO amount: $5 million
Balkan Mining & Minerals Ltd by a $100,0000 Collaborative Exploration Share price range since listing: 16.5-29c
Initiative (CEI) grant from the Queensland Address: Level 6, 22 Pitt Street, Sydney
ASX: BMM Government. Assays are pending for all NSW 2000
three holes. Ballymore also intends to
Listing date: July 14 undertake drilling at its Ruddygore project Tel: +61 2 9290 9600
IPO amount: $6.5 million in early 2022. Website: bastionminerals.com
Share price range since listing: Social media: @BastionLimited
32.5-94.5c Email: [email protected]
Address: 311-313 Hay Street, Subiaco Key personnel: Ross Landles (executive
WA 6008 chairman), Andrew Stewart (non-
Tel: +61 8 6489 0600 executive director), David Nolan (non-
Website: balkanmining.com executive director)
Social media: @BalkanMining Focus: Gold and copper, Chile
Email: [email protected] Comment:
Key personnel: Ross Cotton (managing Quickly launched into exploration on its
director), Sean Murray (non-executive Capote and Cometa projects in the mineral-
chair) rich Atacama region shortly after listing.
Focus: Lithium, Serbia Shares in the company kicked up in late
August after announcing a binding option
Comment: agreement to acquire the historic San
The vehicle for the Serbian lithium assets Juan gold mine and surrounding licences,
previously housed in Jadar Resources Barton Gold Holdings Ltd potentially putting Bastion on the fast-track
(since rebranded as EV Resources Ltd), ASX: BGD to becoming a producer in the near term.
Balkan appointed contractor Geops Balkan
Drilling Services for its inaugural diamond Listing date: June 28
drilling programme at Rekovac. Results
from the campaign were still pending at the IPO amount: $15 million
time of print, although the company has Share price range since listing:
completed extensive gravity and magnetic 15.5-23.5c
surveys over the entire property. Reconcili- Address: Suite 5, 62 Ord Street, West
ation work has also been carried out the Perth WA 6005
Dobrinja and Pranjani projects. Tel: +61 8 9322 1587
aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT FeBRUaRY 2022 Page 35
IPos
company unveiled a maiden inferred Comment:
Besra Gold Inc resource of 15mt @ 11.3% manganese for Recently began drilling at its Reedy Creek
the LR1 prospect at Flanagan Bore, based project in NSW where historical intercepts
ASX: BEZ on historic drill data. A heritage survey was include 12.4m @ 1.13% copper from 33.2m
completed the same month, paving the within 48.1m @ 0.66% copper from 30.3m.
Listing date: October 8 way for drilling to extend the resource and The company also launched a geophysical
IPO amount: $10 million discover more manganese mineralisation survey over the P-47 and P-54 exploration
Share price range since listing: 9.5-22c across multiple targets. targets at the Sampson Tank project
Address: 45 Ventnor Ave, West Perth before year’s end. C29 hopes to have two
WA 6008 Burley Minerals Ltd exploration licence applications granted for
Tel: +61 8 6102 7133 the Torrens copper and uranium projects by
Q2 2022.
Website: besra.com ASX: BUR
Social media: @BesraGold Listing date: July 7 Cannon Resources Ltd
Email: [email protected] IPO amount: $6 million
Key personnel: Andrew Worland (non- Share price range since listing: 16.5-41c ASX: CNR
executive chairman), Ray Shaw (chief Address: Level 3, 30 Richardson Street,
executive) West Perth WA 6005 Listing date: August 12
Focus: Gold, Malaysia Tel: +61 8 9322 6283 IPO amount: $6 million
Comment: Website: burleyminerals.com Share price range since listing: 23.5-66c
Address: Level 2, 87 Colin Street, West
Despite only joining the ASX last year, Email: [email protected] Perth, WA 6005
Besra has spent more than $US40 million Key personnel: Bryan Dixon (non-
on exploration at the Bau gold project in executive chairman), Wayne Richards Tel: +61 8 9226 0044
Malaysia. Resources now total some 3.3 (chief executive), Gary Powell (technical Website: cannonres.com.au
moz gold from more than 250,000m of director) Social Media:
drilling and geophysical analysis. Work on Focus: Iron ore and base metals, WA Email: [email protected]
the project has been sparse since 2014. A
second rig was mobilised to Bau late last Comment: Key personnel: Trevor Benson (non-
year for the initial 3,000-4,000m diamond The company has the best of both worlds executive chairman), Stephen Lynn
drilling programme with the focus currently with its Yerecoin project near New Norcia. (chief executive), Alex Passmore (non-
on the Jugan sector before moving to the As well as an existing magnetite resource of executive director)
Pejiru and Bekajang prospects. 247mt @ 29.9% iron capable of producing Focus: Nickel, WA
a 68.1% iron concentrate, the project has Comment:
Black Canyon Ltd shown early potential for Julimar-style PGE- With Rox Resources Ltd now firmly focused
copper-nickel mineralisation which requires
on advancing the Youanmi gold project,
ASX: BCA follow-up work. Burley has launched into a Cannon is the new home for the Fisher East
PFS for the magnetite project and recently and Collurabbie nickel projects. A diamond
Listing date: May 5 appointed former Brockman Resources rig was mobilised to Fisher East upon listing
IPO amount: $5 million boss Wayne Richards as its new chief and the first three holes into the Musket
executive. Since listing, the company has
Share price range since listing: 18-36c also applied for three exploration licences in prospect returned very encouraging results,
including 14.94m @ 1.9% nickel from
Address: 283 Rokeby Road, Subiaco the Hamersley iron ore province. 366.15m and 5.81m @ 2.29% nickel from
WA 6008 584.35m. Subsequent drilling at Musket
Tel: +61 8 9426 0666 C29 Metals Ltd and the nearby Camelwood prospect
Website: blackcanyon.com.au has continued to extend the known nickel
Social media: ASX: C29 mineralisation beyond 100m.
Email: [email protected] Listing date: November 3
Key personnel: Graham Ascough (non- IPO amount: $5 million Charger Metals NL
executive chairman), Brendan Cummins Share price range since listing: 16-22c
(executive director), Simon Taylor (non- ASX: CHR
executive director) Address: Suite 2, 1 Altona Street, West Listing date: July 9
Focus: Manganese, copper and cobalt, Perth WA 6005 IPO amount: $6 million
WA Tel: +61 8 6559 1792
Website: c29metals.com.au Share price range since listing: 19.5-91c
Comment: Social Media: @C29Metals Address: Unit 32, Level 3, 22 Railway
Established to explore and delineate Email: [email protected] Road, Subiaco WA 6008
manganese, copper and cobalt targets Tel: +61 8 6146 5325
across the Pilbara, Black Canyon controls Key personnel: Mark Major (technical Website: chargermetals.com.au
more than 1,600sq km close to the director), David Lees (non-executive
operating Woodie Woodie manganese chairman) Social Media: @ChargerMetals
mine and Element 25 Ltd’s Butcherbird Focus: Copper in NSW, SA and WA Email: [email protected]
development project. In October, the Key personnel: Terry Gardiner (non-
Page 36 FeBRUaRY 2022 aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT
executive chairman), David Crook Tel: +61 410 504 272 Some of South Australia’s most
(managing director), Adrian Griffin (non- Website: coopermetals.com.au successful resources identities have
executive director) Social Media: @CooperMetals joined forces to find the next major copper
Focus: Lithium and nickel, WA and Email: [email protected] discovery in the Gawler Craton. Copper
Northern Territory Search’s extensive ground holding covers
Key personnel: Michael Frayne more than 6,000sq km, with all project
Comment: (chairman), Ian Warland (managing areas selected on the basis of their
Demerged from Lithium Australia NL, director) prospectivity for IOCG or similar large-
Charger boasts a portfolio which its board Focus: Copper and gold, Queensland scale deposits. The exploration team is
considers to be prospective for demand- and WA being led by Martin Spivey and to date
driven metals associated with the renewable they have identified over 10 high-priority
energy sector. These include a 70% interest in Comment: targets for drilling.
the Coates nickel-copper-cobalt-PGE project Encouraging first-up results were reported
and the Lake Johnston lithium project, both in from early field work at the Mt Isa East Cosmos Exploration Ltd
Western Australia, and the Bynoe lithium and project, including assays up to 35.3% copper
gold project in the Northern Territory. Planning and 7.96 g/t gold. Rock chip samples taken ASX: C1X
and permitting for a maiden drill programme from the historical Wonder mine, part of
at Bynoe is progressing after the company Cooper’s 1,200sq km tenement package Listing date: December 1
confirmed known pegmatites and lithium in north-west Queensland, also returned IPO amount: $5 million
anomalies from recent aeromagnetic and assays up to 15.75% copper. Ground EM
radiometric surveys. and further geochemical sampling is on the Share price range since listing: 15.5-19c
horizon for the King Solomon and Python Address: 6/94 Rokeby Rd, Subiaco WA
prospects. Field work recently started 6008
Codrus Minerals Ltd at the company’s Gooroo copper-gold Website: cosmosx.com.au
project, about 20km south of Silver Lake
ASX: CDR Social Media: @Cosmos_ASX
Resources Ltd’s Deflector mine in WA. Email: [email protected]
Listing date: June 23 Potential exploration programmes are yet to Key personnel: Jeremy Robinson
IPO amount: $8 million be confirmed the Yamarna project which sits (executive chairman), Kristian
along strike from the Gruyere mine.
Share price range since listing: 12-23.5c Hendriksen (exploration manager)
Address: Suite 3, Level 3, 24 Outram Focus: Gold and nickel, NSW and WA
Street, West Perth WA 6005 Copper Search Ltd
Tel: +61 8 6424 9017 ASX: CUS Comment:
Website: codrusminerals.com.au Created for the sole purpose of spinning
out RareX Ltd’s Orange East gold and
Social Media: @CodrusMinerals Listing date: September 15 Byro East nickel-copper-PGE projects in
Email: [email protected] IPO amount: $12 million New South Wales and Western Australia,
Key personnel: Andrew Radonjic (non- Share price range since listing: 22-44c respectively. Exploration at the latter began
executive chairman), Shannan Bamforth Address: 11 Moreau Mews, Applecross almost immediately after the company listed
(managing director) WA 6153 on the ASX, with multi-element soil sampling
Focus: Gold, WA and US Website: coppersearch.com.au seeking to identify potential analogies to
Chalice Mining Ltd’s Julimar discovery.
Social Media: @CopperSearch Orange East is just 15km along strike
Comment: Email: [email protected] from Regis Resources Ltd’s undeveloped
Essentially floated on the back of the same McPhillamys gold project.
assets which Blackstone Minerals Ltd did in Key personnel: Peter McIntyre (chief
2017. With all that company’s attention now executive), Chris Sutherland (non-
dedicated to both upstream and downstream executive chairman), Greg Hall (non- Culpeo Minerals Ltd
nickel production in Vietnam, Codrus executive director), Tony Belperio
was spun out to house the Silver Swan (non-executive director) ASX: CPO
South and Red Gate projects in the WA Focus: Copper-gold, South Australia
Eastern Goldfields and Middle Creek in the Listing date: September 10
Pilbara. The Bull Run project in Oregon, US IPO amount: $6 million
completes the attractive exploration portfolio. Share price range since listing: 13.5-37.5c
Address: Suite 5/62 Ord Street, West
Cooper Metals Ltd Perth WA 6005
Tel: +61 8 9322 1587
ASX: CPM
Website: culpeominerals.com.au
Listing date: November 19 Social Media: @CulpeoMinerals
IPO amount: $4.8 million Email: [email protected]
Share price range since listing: 22-24.5c Key personnel: Max Tuesley (managing
Address: Level 11, 216 St Georges director), Geoff McNamara (non-
Terrace, Perth WA 6000 executive chairman), Zeffron Reeves
(non-executive director)
Comment: Focus: Copper, Chile
aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT FeBRUaRY 2022 Page 37
IPos
Comment: executive) Social Media: @DundasMinerals
Started 2022 on a positive note by increasing Focus: Gold, US Email: [email protected]
its stake in the Las Petacas copper project Key personnel: Mark Chadwick
to 66%, with the right to acquire as much Comment: (chairman), Shane Volk (managing
as 85% of its flagship asset. Drilling late A 2,000m drilling programme at the Western director), Tim Hronksy (technical
last year intersected broad zones of copper Desert gold-copper project in Utah began director)
mineralisation over a strike length of 500m in December following final BLM approval,
within an overall copper mineralised trend marking the first modern exploration to be Focus: Gold, nickel and copper, WA
exceeding 6km in strike length. Culpeo also completed in the area despite the presence
has the San Sebastian and Quelon projects of widespread mineralised outcrop. Drilling Comment:
at opposite ends of Chile’s coastal Cordillera is expected to take up to 3-4 months to Eleven of the 15 holes planned for the
region. complete. A maiden drill programme for company’s maiden drilling at the Kokoda
prospect, part of a 1,200sq km ground
Devils Canyon is planned pending approval holding in the Albany-Fraser Orogen, had
from the BLM. Rounding out Diablo’s US
Dalaroo Metals portfolio is the Lone Pine project where a been completed by mid-January. The rig
drone magnetic survey which identified new was then expected to be moved to the
ASX: DAL targets was completed late last year. Jumbuck project, some 8km to the west.
Listing date: September 28 In its prospectus, Dundas indicated none
of its licences have been subject to recent
IPO amount: $5 million DMC Mining Ltd exploration.
Share price range since listing: 12.5-39c
Address: Suite 1, 346 Barker Rd, ASX: DMM E79 Gold Mines Ltd
Subiaco WA 6008 Listing date: December 22
Tel: +61 8 6380 9675 IPO amount: $5 million ASX: E79
Website: dalaroometals.com.au Share price range since listing: 13.5-17c Listing date: October 7
Social Media: @DalarooMetals Address: Level 27, 44 St Georges Tce, IPO amount: $7 million
Email: [email protected] Perth WA 6000 Share price range since listing: 23-30c
Key personnel: David Quinlivan (non- Tel: +61 8 6316 4674 Address: Level 1, 168 Stirling Hwy,
executive chairman), Harjinder Kehal Website: dmcmining.com.au Nedlands WA 6009
(managing director) Social Media: @DMC_Mining Tel: +61 8 9287 7625
Focus: Base metals, WA
Email: [email protected] Website: e79gold.com.au
Comment: Key personnel: David Sumich (executive Social Media:
A drill rig was secured upon listing for a chairman), William Witham (technical Email: [email protected]
3,000m RC drilling programme at the Lyons director) Key personnel: Chris Cairns (non-
River lead-zinc-copper project, specifically Focus: Nickel, WA executive chairman), Peter Ironside
to test a 2,500m by 1,000m wide target at (non-executive director), Edward
the Four Corners prospect where primary Comment: Summerhayes (chief executive)
sulphide mineralisation was intersected One of the last IPOs to ring the bell before
from earlier EIS-funded diamond drilling. the year came to a close, DMC was able to Focus: Gold, WA
Assays from the eight holes completed swiftly start exploration at its 100%-owned
before Christmas were pending at the time Ravensthorpe nickel project last month, Comment:
of print. Dalaroo is also continuing systematic beginning with a high-resolution helicopter- Almost eight years after getting the band
geochemistry and geophysics at the borne EM and magnetic survey over the back together for the successful float
Namban nickel-copper-PGE project, about 62sq km property. Also in the nickel-focused of Stavely Minerals Ltd, former Integra
80km north of Julimar. company’s portfolio is Trinity project in the Mining directors Chris Cairns and Peter
Fraser Range where six high-priority targets Ironside have repeated the trick with E79
have been identified to date. Gold Mines. Aircore drilling at Laverton
Diablo Resources Ltd South will continue into next month, with
all results expected by April. Meanwhile, a
ASX: DBO Dundas Minerals ground gravity programme at Jungar Flats
Listing date: October 12 ASX: DUN in the Murchison was due to wrap at the
time of print.
IPO amount: $6.5 million
Share price range since listing: 10-20.8c Listing date: November 10 Eastern Metals Ltd
Address: Level 1, 10 Outram Street, IPO amount: $6 million
West Perth WA 6005 Share price range since listing: 18.5- ASX: EMS
Tel: +61 8 6383 7837 28.5c Listing date: October 25
Website: diabloresources.com.au Address: Suite 13, 100 Railway Rd, IPO amount: $4.5 million
Subiaco WA 6008
Email: [email protected] Tel: +61 457 024 143 Share price range since listing: 16.5-27c
Key personnel: Paul Lloyd (non- Address: Level 12, 225 George Street,
executive chairman), Lyle Thorne (chief Website: dundasminerals.com
Sydney NSW 2000
Page 38 FeBRUaRY 2022 aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT
Evolving Evolution Energy Minerals Ltd
Tel: +61 2 9290 9600
Website: easternmetals.com.au ASX: AW1
Social Media: @EasternMetals Listing date: November 16
Email: [email protected] Chilalo IPO amount: $22 million
Key personnel: Robert Duffin (non-
executive chairman), Wayne Rossiter volution Energy Minerals Ltd executive Share price range since listing: 39-70c
(managing director), Cathy Moises E chairman Trevor Benson is confident the Address: Level 1, Emerald House, 1202
(deputy chair) funding hurdles which have plagued develop- Hay Street, West Perth WA 6005
Focus: Base and precious metals, NSW ment of the Chilalo graphite project in Tanzania Tel: +61 8 9200 3426
and Northern Territory are now greatly reduced. Website: evolutionenergyminerals.com.au
Having worked in the graphite space for Social media: @Evolution_EV1
Comment: the past six years, Benson believes an ESG-
Came to market with a simple business focused approach will help unlock large pools Email: [email protected]
case – grow the resource, navigate of “green” capital previously not available to the Key personnel: Trevor Benson (executive
the permitting and approvals process, project. chairman), Michael Bourguignon
complete feasibility studies and arrange Shortly after the company was spun out of (executive director), Phil Hoskins (non-
development finance, and in doing so add Marvel Gold Ltd and listed on the ASX in No- executive director), Amanda van Dyke
value for shareholders. Eastern Metals is vember, Evolution officially committed to an (non-executive director)
initiating that strategy via the Arunta project ESG framework designed to ensure the com- Focus: Graphite, Tanzania
in the Northern Territory and the Cobar pany’s ambition to become a choice supplier
deposit in NSW. of sustainable graphite appeals to all corners
of the global investment community.
Evolution has already secured cornerstone
Equinox Resources Ltd support from dedicated ESG investor ARCH
ASX: EQN Sustainable Resources Fund as part of its $22
million IPO. This investment was accompanied
Listing date: October 13 by a pledge for up to $US25 million towards the
IPO amount: $9 million overall funding package for Chilalo.
“Having been in and around graphite for
Share price range since listing: 18-32c some time now, the biggest challenge in
Address: Level 9, 182 St George’s Tce, graphite is funding the development of an op- Trevor Benson
Perth WA 6000 eration,” Benson told Paydirt.
“For Evolution, the absolute No.1 priority
Tel: +61 8 6109 6689 was to not stumble on the ability to get fund- “Very cleverly, the previous management
Website: eqnx.com.au ing. To that end, we were able to get ARCH on were able to ringfence the project with the debt
Social Media: board and they now have a 25% stake in the and were able to move on with their gold pro-
ject until such time that an opportunity came
Email: [email protected] company. They are very keen to invest in sus- along to be able to pay back the debt and basi-
Key personnel: Rod Baxter (non- tainable ESG-compliant resource projects and cally buy back the security in the project.
executive chairman), Daniel Taylor saw Evolution as top-tier in that area. That’s an “We always thought it was a hugely under-
(managing director) incredible vote of confidence for investors in valued asset if we could unlock the debt and
this company.
Focus: Iron ore, WA “ARCH have spent a year doing due dili- bring in new investors, alongside the support of
some very loyal shareholders who have been
gence on us which we think opens the door with the story for a long time.”
Comment: for many other ‘green’ funds to become co-
Timing was not on the company’s side investors in the project. So, by having ARCH Following its ASX debut, Evolution launched
in terms of entering the fray amid a more on board, that major risk has been greatly re- a series of value engineering studies designed
buoyant iron ore sector but that failed to duced and we believe funding is very achiev- to improve the project economics and reduce
stop Equinox from kicking a few goals in able.” the carbon footprint at Chilalo. These studies
the months after its ASX debut. A Native Chilalo was on the cusp of development are being led by former Syrah Resources Ltd
Title deed was signed with the Wintawari in early 2020 when Marvel (then known as project manager Michael Bourguignon and
Guruma Aboriginal Corp in December, Graphex Mining) published a DFS which in- are expected to be completed ahead of a final
outlining a framework for how both parties dicated an average graphite concentrate pro- investment decision on a proposed construc-
will work together during the development duction rate of 50,000 tpa would generate a tion start in the second half.
and potential operations of the Hamersley post-tax NPV of $US323 million, IRR of 34% “It’s a unique situation where you get to float
iron ore project. This milestone was and average annual EBITDA of $US73 million. a company with an economic DFS,” Benson
preceded by the appointments of CSA Debt funding had also been lined up for the said. “There’s been $20-odd million spent on
Global as geological consultants and $US87.4 million project. However, the global the project already which gives us a big leg-up,
former Rio Tinto Ltd executive and iron COVID-19 pandemic then threw a massive but there’s still plenty to do.
ore specialist Graham Fyfe as chief spanner in the works and Graphex was left “We’re tweaking and optimising the DFS,
operating officer. with a $9.5 million debt overburden. we’ve started work on an extensive explora-
tion campaign, renewing the Relocation As-
“Unfortunately, that funder was primarily an sistance Programme and we’ll update our
aeroplane leasing company and we all know environmental studies to the new World Bank
what’s happened to anyone leveraged to the IFC standards.”
airline industry during COVID-19,” Benson ex-
plained. – Michael Washbourne
aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT FeBRUaRY 2022 Page 39
IPos
Fledgling Falcon ready to emulate
Chalice, Kirkland
t has been a case of from flagship to forgot- picked them up,” Markwell said.
Iten and back again for Pyramid Hill in recent “They were picking up a lot of
years, with the Victorian gold project again the ground north of Bendigo that
the centre of a company’s attention after the hadn’t really been explored be-
listing of Falcon Metals Ltd. cause it goes under some cover.
Pyramid Hill was a key asset for Chalice Chalice has done some fantastic
Mining Ltd until the discovery of the Julimar work. They’ve proven up four tar-
nickel-copper/PGM project in Western Aus- gets, they’ve done diamond drill-
tralia in early 2020. ing and aircore drilling so we have
With that remarkable project dominating lots of advanced projects to imme-
budgets and investor attention, Chalice chose diately start diamond drilling on.”
to give Pyramid Hill and two WA assets – Vi- In January, the company an-
king and Mt Jackson – their own platform. nounced it had started a 5,500m
Falcon listed on December 22, having drilling programme at the 4km-
raised $30 million at IPO. Managing direc- long Karri prospect with an initial
tor Tim Markwell told Paydirt TV the larger hole planned along strike of a
raising would set the company up for several high-grade intercept of 5.1m @ 14
years of exploration. g/t gold, including 2.2m @ 32.1 g/t
“That $30 million was targeted right at the gold.
very start and the reason is this is a large pro- “[It has] gold and arsenic in soils
ject area, we have more than 5,000sq km and very similar to the size of footprint Falcon’s Pyramid Hill gold project in Victoria already has
we don’t just want to be doing it slowly over you get around a Fosterville-style four walk-up targets previously defined by Chalice Mining
the next 10 years or so,” Markwell said. “We orebody and they managed to drill
want to hit this hard. We want to be quite ag- a couple of diamond holes that hit
gressive with our drilling and we want to really some very high-grade gold,” Markwell said. widely spaced but very good grades – 30m
find something. So, I think the traditional $5-6 “Our plan is to really close in on those high- @ 1.5 g/t gold. Something like that we will be
million IPO just wouldn’t have worked with grade hits and vector into where we think the filling in aircore around it and the idea with that
something like this. It needed to be a decent, high-grade mineralisation is coming from to one would be to do diamond drilling towards
strong balance sheet to really give it a good really try to get an idea of where it’s heading the end of the season to progress like an ear-
hard go straight from the get-go.” so we can do some in-field drilling and hope- lier stage aircore target to diamond drilling.”
Chalice had acquired the Pyramid Hill – in fully at some stage put out a resource.” Gradual progression appears to be the
the prolific Bendigo zone – in 2017 with sev- Kirkland Lake Gold Inc’s Fosterville gold order of the day for the next 12 months with
eral rounds of drilling defining four large-scale mine looms large in any Victorian gold explo- resource statements not expected before the
priority prospects. ration story but while Markwell didn’t rule out end of the year.
“They were fairly early stage when Chalice geological similarities, he said Falcon wouldn’t “It would be wonderful to think we could
be entirely focused on Fosterville lookalikes. [put out a resource] if things go well – that’s
“Victorian deposits – like most gold depos- certainly a possibility – but at this stage it’s re-
Falcon Metals Ltd its around the world – each have their own ally about tightening up around the high grade
characteristics,” he said. “Fosterville has its and vectoring into where we think it’s going,”
ASX: FAL characteristics, Bendigo has its style, Ballarat Markwell said.
It is a similar situation in WA, where the
Listing date: December 22 has its style as well. So, we’re not looking ex- company plans some initial RC drilling at
IPO amount: $30 million actly for something like that [Fosterville]. What the Viking project, 30km east-southeast of
we are looking for is large mineralised sys-
Share price range since listing: 31-89c tems that are more likely to host orebodies of Norseman in the Albany-Fraser province.
Address: Level 3, 46 Colin Street, West that sort of grade and size. Those sorts of ore- “AngloGold [Ashanti Ltd] actually did some
Perth, WA, 6005 bodies shed a lot of gold and arsenic from the work on this project a while ago, some aircore
Tel: +61 8 9322 3960 minerals in them and we are looking to focus drilling on an oxide target which got some
very high-grade hits [including 5m @ 44.5 g/t,
Website: falconmetals.com.au on these larger systems that are most likely to 4m @ 15.4 g/t and 6m @ 6 g/t] but it really
host these world-class orebodies.”
Social media: @FalconMetalsLtd As well as Karri, Falcon plans to conduct hasn’t been touched since,” Markwell said. “It
Email: [email protected] aircore drilling at the Ironbark prospect where is not often you get a project like that where
Key personnel: Tim Markwell (managing diamond drilling by Chalice indicated the mar- you can just come in and drill under hits.”
director), Mark Bennett (non-executive gins of diorite intrusives were mineralised. Markwell is joined on the Falcon board by
chair), Alex Dorsch (non-executive “Ironbark is a little bit less advanced but Chalice managing director Alex Dorsch as
director) that’s got some very exciting aircore drilling non-executive director and well-known ge-
ologist Mark Bennett as non-executive chair-
Focus: Gold, Victoria and Western that was done by Chalice in 2021,” Markwell man, based in Melbourne.
said. “There’s a prospect called Ironbark East
Australia
that had several aircore hits that were very – Dominic Piper
P
Page 40 FeBRUaRY 2022 aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRTage 40 FeBRUaRY 2022 aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT
South Melbourne VIC 3205
Firebird Metals Ltd Tel: +61 8 9692 7222
ASX: FRB Website: flynngold.com.au
Social Media: @FlynnGoldLtd
Listing date: March 18 Email: [email protected]
IPO amount: $5.5 million Key personnel: Clive Duncan
Share price range since listing: 33-84.5c (chairman), Sam Garrett (executive
Address: Suite 20, 513 Hay Street, director), Doug Kirwin (technical
Subiaco WA 6008 advisor)
Tel: +61 8 6245 9818 Focus: Gold, Western Australia and
Website: firebirdmetals.com.au Tasmania
Social Media: @AsxFrb Comment:
Email: [email protected] Flynn holds a 448 sq km footprint in
Key personnel: Evan Cranston Western Australia, including a project
(chairperson), Peter Allen (managing south of De Grey Mining Ltd’s Hemi
director, below), Ashley Pattison (non- discovery. More recently, the explorer has
executive director) been focused on its Golden Ridge project
Focus: Manganese, Western Australia in Tasmania (right), believed to be on the
same geological trend as the Victorian
goldfields, with rock chip samples
Comment:
Manganese-focused spin-out of Firefly reaching up to 61 g/t.
Resources, the company has locked
on to three key prospects in the East Forrestania Resources Ltd
Pilbara. The Oakover project, 85km east
of Newman, already possesses a 64mt ASX: FRS
@ 10% manganese resource, with infill
and extensional drilling planned alongside Listing date: September 30
metallurgical test work. Inferred resources IPO amount: $5 million
at the company’s Hill 616 project were Share price range since listing: 25-56c
recently increased to 57.5mt @ 12.2%
manganese. Address: Suite 2, 38 Colins Street, West
Perth WA 6005
Tel: +61 8 6391 0113
Website: forrestaniaresources.com.au
Social Media: @ForrestaniaRes
Email: info@forrestaniaresources.
com.au
Key personnel: Simon Adams (chief
financial officer), David Izzard (director),
Melanie Sutterby (general manager and Address: London House, Suite 3, Level
chief executive) 8, 216 St Georges Terrace, Perth WA
Focus: Gold, lithium and nickel, Western 6000
Australia Tel: +61 8 9200 5812
Website: genmingroup.com
Comment: Social Media: @GenminASX
Forrestania’s namesake project is
adjacent to the established Flying Fox Email: [email protected]
mine and is earmarked as the company’s Key personnel: Michael Arnett
“cornerstone” play. Results from the (non-executive chairman), Joe Ariti
Lady Lila project, 17km southwest of (managing director), John Hodder (non-
the historic Bounty gold mine, defined executive director)
supergene mineralisation over a 300km Focus: Iron ore, Gabon
strike length in December – in addition to
its existing inferred mineral resource of Comment:
541,000t @ 1.38 g/t gold for 24,000oz. Genmin started 2022 off on the right
foot, signing a MoU to sell and deliver
Flynn Gold Ltd 1.5 mtpa of fines and 500,000 tpa of
Genmin Ltd lump product to Jianlong Group (China’s
ASX: FG1 country’s second largest privately
ASX: GEN owned iron and steel enterprise)
Listing date: June 17 over a two-year period. Jianlong also
IPO amount: $10 million Listing date: March 10 commissioned China’s first hydrogen-
Share price range since listing: 13-20c IPO amount: $29.9 million powered iron production line in 2021, as
Address: Level 4, 96-100 Albert Rd, Share price range since listing: 13.5–34c opposed to the use of coking coal.
aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT FeBRUaRY 2022 Page 41
IPos
Global Lithium Resorces Ltd
ASX: GL1
Global years and 12,000m of exploration work Listing date: May 6
by the Global Lithium team. The compa-
ny was founded a year earlier by a group IPO amount: $10 million
appeal sends of investors which includes well-known Share price range since listing: 24c-$1.32
WA mining executive Dianmin Chen who
Address: Suite 8, 7 The Esplanade, Mt
is now a non-executive director. The
strategy was to scour the globe to find a Pleasant WA 6153
lithium IPO suitable lithium project. Tel: +61 8 9316 9100
Unsurprisingly, the search landed on
Website: globallithium.com.au
WA and the Archer deposit which is fa- Social media: @global_lithium
upwards vourably located in the emerging Pilbara Email: [email protected]
lithium province, close to Pilbara Miner-
als Ltd’s Pilgangoora mine and the Wod- Key personnel (on listing): Jamie Wright
gina development project. (managing director), Dianmin Chen (non-
“The Global technical team thought executive director), Warrick Hazeldine
ommodity and location played their it bared similarities to Wodgina so the (non-executive chair)
Cpart but project status was just as company picked it up in 2019,” inau- Focus: Lithium, gold and base metals,
crucial to the success of Global Lithium gural managing director Jamie Wright Western Australia
Ltd’s entry onto the bourse in May. explained to Paydirt in May 2021. “We
Global Lithium closed the calendar started exploration almost immediately
year as the second most successful new and within 12 months we had a resource.
listing, posting a 240% rise to 95c/share We could move quickly because the spo- over more than 6km. Preliminary metal-
after arriving on the ASX at 20c. dumene outcrops at surface.” lurgical test work also began in the De-
The company undoubtedly caught the Hazeldine said the combination of cember quarter ahead of a resource up-
battery minerals wave with investors en- commodity, location and established as- date and 50,000m drill programme early
amoured by the company’s Marble Bar set made Global Lithium a ready-made this year.
lithium project in the Pilbara, Western option for investors eager to get in on the The company was active in the corpo-
Australia. However, according to chair- ground floor of a battery minerals invest- rate space, securing an additional 120sq
man Warrick Hazeldine, other elements ment. km of tenements south of Archer and
contributed to the achievement. “We didn’t have to educate the mar- then in December striking a JV agree-
“Rather than listing on the back of ket on the location because you couldn’t ment to acquire 80% of the Manna lith-
some exploration potential, we came ask for a better jurisdiction than the Pil- ium project, 100km east of Kalgoorlie,
to market with hard assets which could bara,” he said. “The commodity choice from Breaker Resources NL.
grow. We understood the importance of has been vindicated by lithium hydroxide “We’ll be getting on the ground as
giving the market a growth story,” Hazel- pricing in recent months and thanks to quickly as possible on both projects in
dine told Paydirt, referring to the 10.5mt the early work we have a great platform 2022,” Hazeldine said. “We want to get
@ 1% Li2O inferred resource Global Lith- to build from.” up and running because it is a very excit-
ium defined for the Archer deposit prior The 2021 exploration programme de- ing time to be in battery minerals so we
to listing. livered strike extensions at Marble Bar look forward to keeping the news flowing
The resource came on the back of two with lithium mineralisation now defined for investors.”
Such has been the progress from $10
million IPO to genuine lithium develop-
ment story that Global Lithium has at-
tracted corporate interest into the com-
pany.
In November, Chinese group Yi-
bin Tianyi – the lithium chemical arm of
CATL, the world’s largest EV battery-
maker – became a 9.9% shareholder as
part of a $13.6 million capital raising.
That was followed in January by the
appointment of former Fortescue Met-
als Group Ltd executive Greg Lilleyman
to the board, along with Ron Mitchell
who was previously sales director, inter-
national business group for Tianqi Lith-
ium Corporation, majority owner of the
Greenbushes lithium mine in WA.
“Those appointments make people re-
alise how real this project is,” Hazeldine
said. “This is Greg’s first role since leav-
ing Fortescue and Ron is very skilled in
lithium offtake and marketing.”
The Global Lithium board on listing – Dianmen Cheng, Warrick Hazeldine and Jamie Wright. – Dominic Piper
The company announced in January that Wright was stepping down with Greg Lilleyman and
Ron Mitchell joining the team
Page 42 FeBRUaRY 2022 aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT
Tel: +61 8 6557 6825
Gold 50 Ltd Website: greentm.com.au Heavy Minerals Ltd
ASX: G50 Social Media: @green_metals ASX: HVY
Email: [email protected]
Listing date: August 6 Key personnel: John Young (chairman), Listing date: September 14
IPO amount: $10 million Cameron Henry (non-executive IPO amount: $5.5 million
Share price range since listing: 19.5-30c director), Luke Cox (chief executive), Share price range since listing: 13-26c
Address: Suite 503, 140 Arthur Street, Matt Herbert (general manager for North Address: Level 11, 216 St Georges
North Sydney NSW 2060 America) Terrace, Perth WA 6000
Tel: +61 2 9922 5800 Focus: Lithium, Canada Tel: +61 8 9481 0389
Website: gold50.com Comment: Website: heavyminerals.com
Social Media: @gold50_ One of many new companies on the Social Media: @HeavyMinerals
Email: [email protected] bourse capitalising on the momentum Email: [email protected]
Key personnel: Rob Reynolds of the lithium industry and its bubbling Key personnel: Maurice Dominic Matich
positive sentiment. Phase 1 drilling at
(chairman), Mark Wallace (managing the company’s Seymour project began (executive director), Adam Schofield
director), Bernard Rowe (non-executive in December, with 11 holes for 3,500m (non-executive chairman), Greg Jones
director) set to expand the current resource of 4.8 (non-executive director)
Focus: Gold, copper and base metals, mt @ 1.25% lithium. The programme is Focus: Heavy minerals and mineral
USA expected to finish in March. sands, WA and Mozambique
Comment: Comment:
At the end of the September quarter, a Hamelin Gold Ltd The company owns 70% of the Inhambane
ground magnetic survey represented mineral sands project in Mozambique,
the first systematic exploration at the ASX: HMG holding an inferred mineral resource of
Golconda project, Arizona, in more 51mt @ 3.4% for a contained 1.7mt of
than 30 years. Drill targets are now Listing date: November 5 heavy minerals. Drilling at the company’s
being investigated via geological IPO amount: $10 million wholly owned Port Gregory project in
mapping, structural analysis and surface Share price range since listing: 13-20c Western Australia restarted in January.
geochemical sampling. Four patented Address: Suite 2, 1 Alvan Street,
claims were put forward in December to Subiaco WA 6008
grow the project’s size. Meanwhile, drilling Iceni Gold Ltd
has also begun at the greenfields Top Tel: +61 8 9486 9455 ASX: ICL
Gun prospect in Nevada with 2,000m RC Website: hamelingold.com.au
work planned and $9.1 million cash in tow. Social Media: Listing date: April 14
Email: [email protected] IPO amount: $20 million
Key personnel: Will Robinson (non- Share price range since listing: 15-37c
executive chairman), Peter Bewick Address: Level 2, 41-43 Ord Street, West
(managing director), Justin Osborne Perth WA 6005
(non-executive director)
Focus: Gold, Western Australia Tel: +61 8 6458 4200
Website: icenigold.com.au
Comment: Social Media: @Iceni_Gold
Spun out of copper-focused Encounter Email: [email protected]
Resources Ltd, Hamelin has vowed to Key personnel: Brian Rodan (executive
bring modern exploration to the prolific chairman), Dave Nixon (technical
Tanami gold region of Western Australia. director), Keith Murray (non-executive
Exploration at the West Tanami project director)
officially kicked off in November with
aeromagnetic surveys scouring 2,277 sq Focus: Gold, Western Australia
km of land. A major drilling programme is
expected to begin this quarter as RC and Comment:
diamond drilling contractors are finalised. Iceni management says 80% of its
tenement package, a 600 sq km holding
of six key prospect areas around the
Laverton greenstone belt, has never seen
modern systematic geological investigation.
Green Technology Metals Ltd Ongoing exploration at the TOTK prospect,
including diamond drilling and soil sampling,
ASX: GT1 discovered a syenite gold intrusion in
November. A 121-hole aircore drilling
Listing date: November 10 programme is planned to outline broader
IPO amount: $24 million alteration patterns at TOTK.
Share price range since listing: 33-76c
Address: Unit 6, 94 Rokeby Road,
Subiaco WA 6008
aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT FeBRUaRY 2022 Page 43
IPos
Industrial Minerals Ltd Iris Metals Ltd Juno Minerals Ltd
ASX: IND ASX: IR3 ASX: JNO
Listing date: July 13 Listing date: September 23 Listing date: March 14
IPO amount: $5 million IPO amount: $7 million IPO amount: $3.91 million
Share price range since listing: 18-37c Share price range since listing: 19.5-69c Share price range since listing: 15-29.5c
Address: Unit 20, 513 Hay Street, Address: Level 6, 400 Collins Street, Address: Level 10, 16 St Georges
Subiaco WA 6008 Melbourne VIC 3000 Terrace, Perth WA 6000
Tel: +61 8 6270 6316 Tel: +61 2 8072 1400 Tel: +61 8 9346 5599
Website: industmin.com Website: irismetals.com Website: junominerals.com.au
Social Media: @industmin Social Media: @IrisMetals Social Media: @JunoMinerals
Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected]
Key personnel: Ashley Pattison Key personnel: Simon Lill (non- Key personnel: Greg Durack (managing
(chairperson), Jeff Sweet (operations executive chairman), Peter Marks director), Patrick Murphy (non-executive
director), Alex Neuling (non-executive (executive director), Tal Paneth chair)
director and company secretary) (executive director) Focus: Iron ore, Western Australia
Focus: Silica sand and industrial Focus: Gold, Western Australia
minerals, Western Australia Comment:
Comment: Juno’s Mount Mason hematite deposit
Comment: Since listing, Iris Metals’ share price has boasts a 5.9mt “shovel-ready” mineral
One of the few not engaged in the steadily climbed to a healthy 63c as of resource, while its Mount Ida magnetite
commonality of either gold or critical January – an increase of 200%. A 76- project holds a 1.85bt resource and has
battery minerals, the company holds hole, 1,938m aircore drill programme was the potential to be a long-life Tier-1 mine.
several projects across the WA coast, completed at the company’s Kookynie The company is currently assessing
including many close to existing ports. project in December and an aeromagnetic contracting tenders for the Mount Mason
Auger drilling results in November survey was completed at its Leonora project while other approvals are under
returned an average silica grade of 99.2% project in January, identifying seven high way.
from 11 holes, with some as deep as 2m. priority targets. Assays from Kookynie are
Analysis is ongoing from 900m of auger expected this quarter.
sampling and an aircore rig was mobilised Kalgoorlie Gold Mining Ltd
in November.
iTech Minerals Ltd ASX: KAL
Infinity Mining Ltd ASX: ITM Listing date: November 17
IPO amount: $7.48 million
ASX: IMI Listing date: October 21 Share price range since listing: 13-19c
IPO amount: $7 million
Listing date: December 22 Share price range since listing: 18.5-37c Address: Suite 2, 45 Ord Street, West
IPO amount: $10 million Address: Level 3, 170 Greenhill Road, Perth WA 6005
Share price range since listing: 15.5-20c Parkside SA 5063 Tel: +61 8 6244 5136
Address: 555 Coronation Drive, Tel: +02 5850 0000 Website: kalgoldmining.com.au
Toowong QLD 4066 Website: itechminerals.com.au Social Media: @kalgoorliegold
Tel: +61 7 3221 1796 Social Media: @ItechMinerals Email: [email protected]
Website: infinitymining.com.au Email: [email protected] Key personnel: Matt Painter (managing
Social Media: @infinitymining2 Key personnel: Michael Schwarz director), Andrew Penkethman (non-
executive director), Pauline Gately
Email: communications@ (managing director), Glenn Davis (non- (non-executive chair), Carmel McKenzie
infinitymining.com.au executive chairman), Gary Ferris (non- (non-executive director)
Key personnel: Joe Phillips (executive executive director) Focus: Gold, Western Australia
chairman), Josephus Groot (director Focus: Halloysite-kaolinite, rare earths
and chief executive), Cameron McCall and graphite, South Australia Comment:
(non-executive director) Spun out of Ardea Resources Ltd, the
Focus: Gold, nickel, silver, copper and Comment: aptly-named Kalgoorlie Gold Mining
lithium, Western Australia iTech’s focus sits on graphite, which is holds a number of projects in the Eastern
crucial to developing more efficient and Goldfields with an objective to fast track
Comment: compact lithium-ion batteries, such as a pathway to mining. A 34-hole, 3,300m
Although focused on rare earths critical those in electric vehicles. The company drill programme began at the Bulong
to renewable energy, Infinity’s short-term acquired its assets from the technology- Taurus project in January; the company’s
sights are set on work programmes to focused Archer Materials Ltd, with the second RC drill campaign since listing in
create cashflow from gold opportunities new owner looking to take advantage of November. Targeting is also under way at
in the Central Goldfields. The spoils are the advanced nature of some tenements. the Pinjin and Ninga Mia projects.
expected to fund longer term targets near
Marble Bar in the Pilbara.
Page 44 FeBRUaRY 2022 aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT
Website: koonenberrygold.com.au Address: 136 Stirling Highway,
Kincora Copper Ltd Social Media: Nedlands WA 6009
ASX: IND Email: [email protected] Tel: +61 8 6373 0112
Key personnel: Anthony McIntosh Website: larvottoresources.com
Listing date: March 30 (interim chair), Karen O’Neill (chief Social Media: @LarvottoR
IPO amount: $10 million executive), Ben Donovan (non-executive Email: [email protected]
Share price range since listing: 10.5-40c director and company secretary) Key personnel: Ron Heeks (managing
Address: Floor 25, 700 West Georgia Focus: Gold, New South Wales director), Mark Tomlinson (non-
Street, Vancouver BC V7Y 1B3 Comment: executive chair), Anna Nahajski-Staples
Tel: +1 604 283 1722 Koonenberry’s namesake greenfields (non-executive director)
Website: kincoracopper.com project is located northeast of the major Focus: Gold, nickel, lithium, copper
and PGE, West Australia, New Zealand,
Social Media: @KincoraCopper mining centre of Broken Hill and lies upon Queensland
Email: [email protected] geology that is analogous to the Victorian
Goldfields, according to management.
Key personnel: Sam Spring (executive A progress report on the project was Comment:
director and chief executive), Cameron released in December, detailing results Larvotto started exploration at its Mt
McRae (non-executive chairman), John from 441 soils samples. Further sampling Isa copper project in January, including
Holliday (non-executive director) is planned this year to develop a better drilling, geochemistry and geophysics
Focus: Copper and gold, New South geological model. – following up samples including 15m
Wales @ 6.6% copper and 0.64 g/t gold.
Geophysical tests were expected to begin
Comment: Kuniko Ltd this month. Mt Isa is along strike from
A TSX-V listed company that made its Glencore Plc’s Mt Isa mines operation,
Australian bourse debut in March. Sam ASX: KNI the second largest copper producer in the
Spring has been the executive director Listing date: August 24 country.
since 2013 and has overseen the
company’s pivot from Mongolian assets IPO amount: $7.88 million Legacy Minerals Holdings Ltd
(sold to Resilience Mining Mongolia Ltd) Share price range since listing: 75c-$3.6
to Australian copper and gold. Porphyry- Address: Level 11, 125 St George’s ASX: LGM
style intrusions were recently discovered Terrace, Perth WA 6000
at the Trundle Park prospect, including Tel: +61 8 6164 5095 Listing date: September 13
42m @ 0.42 g/t gold and 0.12% copper IPO amount: $5.81 million
from 358m, including 10m @ 1.13 g/t gold Website: kuniko.eu Share price range since listing: 15.5-26c
and 0.32% copper from 382m. Social Media: @KunikoLtd Address: Suite 401, 54 Miller Street,
Email: [email protected] North Sydney NSW 2060
Key personnel: Gavin Rezos (chairman), Tel: +02 8 005 7107
Antony Beckmand (chief executive),
Brendan Borg (non-executive director) Website: legacyminerals.com.au
Focus: Cobalt, nickel and copper, Social Media: @LegacyMinerals
Norway Email: [email protected]
Key personnel: Christopher Byrne
Comment: (managing director), David Carland
Boasting the non-core assets previously (non-executive chairman)
held by Vulcan Energy Resources Ltd,
Kuniko pledges the same zero-carbon Focus: Gold and base metals, New
business model, sourcing battery metals South Wales
in the name of human rights and ethically
extracted materials. The company cites Comment:
Europe’s hunger for a more than 800 Legacy is scouring the Lachlan Fold
GWh battery manufacturing capacity by Belt for a myriad of commodities over
2030 to fulfil the EV market. Geochemical six prospects covering 1,000sq km. The
soil samples have shown the potential company believes there is potential for
for deeper and more modern exploration “near-term” resource definition among
across drill programmes at the Skuterud the portfolio of drill-ready targets. Re-
assaying of Phase 1 gold exploration at
Koonenberry Gold Ltd cobalt project, proximal to the historic the Harden project recently upgraded
Middagshvile mine.
ASX: KNB results such as 130m @ 1.38 g/t, to
130m @ 19.35 g/t. Additional assays
Listing date: September 28 Larvotto Resources Ltd from a diamond drilling programme were
IPO amount: $8 million ASX: LRV expected by this month.
Share price range since listing: 11.5-21c
Address: Ground Floor, 16 Ord Street, Listing date: December 6
West Perth WA 6005 IPO amount: $6 million
Tel: +61 8 6245 9869 Share price range since listing: 10.5-21c
aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT FeBRUaRY 2022 Page 45
IPos
Clean and lean makes for IPO success
ithium Energy Ltd (LEL) executive chairman other ASX listed com-
L William Johnson has attributed the com- panies, such as those
pany’s critical offering of ethically-sourced and in African countries
environmentally-clean graphite as the main that carry implied
reason for its stunning first year on the bourse. risks.”
Spun out of Strike Resources Ltd via a $9 Ethically-sourced
million IPO in May, the company debuted its critical battery miner-
stock at 47c and by year’s end was command- als are coming under
ing more than double the price. At the time of increasing scrutiny to
print, its shares were $1.22, a 158.51% premi- meet ESG require-
um to its listing valuation. Strike has retained a ments, as the compet-
43% interest in LEL. itive hunger may drive Lithium Energy’s Solaroz lithium project is located in Argentina’s
LEL offers two opportunities from its portfo- buyers to plot their in- lithium triangle, a hot property already housing production
lio – the 12,000ha Solaroz lithium brine project vestments away from
in Argentina and the Burke graphite project in jurisdictions with such
north-central Queensland. The latter holds a issues.
6.3mt @ 16% TGC inferred mineral resource. “We’ve indicated with our graphite project
“We took the decision about this time last that we want to develop a value-adding manu-
year to spin them out into a battery minerals facturing business of purified spherical graph-
company,” Johnson explained to Paydirt. “We ite [PSG],” Johnson said.
got a sense that the battery minerals sector “That would add considerable value to our
was taking off. The timing was perfect, and the business with a high-value product and given
share price has gone very well, one of the most our location of the project in Queensland…we
successful IPOs of the last year.” think we’re well positioned to take advantage of
Johnson believes LEL’s surging share price the opportunity. William Johnson
is largely owed to the Burke project striking a “There’s typically ten-times more graphite
chord with investors, rather than the fellow bat- in a lithium-ion battery than lithium itself. At the China’s hunger for the resource to fuel lithium-
tery mineral from which the company took its moment, most PSG is produced in China and ion batteries.
name. they sell that to the battery manufacturers. One The Solaroz project being adjacent to
“We have one of the largest, independent of the problems with that is Chinese compa- Allkem Ltd’s flagship operations (formerly Oro-
land holdings left in that Argentina ‘lithium trian- nies typically use nasty chemicals during the cobre), a company that has been producing for
gle’ salt lake, so naturally there’s a lot of interest processing. roughly five years now. Johnson said it was a
in that, but our graphite project in Queensland “Battery and EV manufacturers are increas- blueprint for success.
is also particularly exciting – it’s one of the ingly looking down their supply chains to en- “All the geophysics and exploration that
highest-grade graphite deposits in the world,” sure that things are being done in a sustainable we’ve seen from others, such as Orocobre
he said. way. There’s going to be a lot more focus on and Lithium Americas [Corp] who are our two
“Also, because it’s situated in Queensland, manufacturing techniques. neighbours on that lake, supports our theory
I think investors recognise it’s a safer jurisdic- “So, we see an opportunity here in Aus- that the lithium-rich brines that they’re tapping
tion than different graphite projects held by tralia to rather than just dig up the graphite and into produce lithium carbonate extends under
produce a concentrate to be sold to China for our concessions,” Johnson said.
value adding, we can do that value adding our- “It’s simply a matter of doing some geophys-
Lithium Energy Ltd selves here in Australia.” ics to first map out the underlying structure and
LEL is currently working on approvals to fi- drilling down to identify where those lithium-
ASX: LEL nalise drilling at Burke to upgrade the inferred rich brines are and then hopefully from there,
resource to indicated, with CSIRO also col-
Listing date: May 19 laborating with the company. we can put together a resource.”
Exploration at Solaroz is expected to start
IPO amount: $9 million “The work CSIRO is currently doing with this month after COVID restrictions stopped
Share price range since listing: 31c-$1.23 us is helping to identify the optimal process LEL from hitting the ground immediately on list-
for taking our graphite and sterilising it so we
Address: Level 2, 31 Ventnor Avenue, can move from concentrate production to the ing, despite Argentinian authorities reconfirm-
West Perth WA 6005 higher-value PSG product,” Johnson said. ing all technical aspects of exploration plans.
Johnson said the delays were due to a num-
Tel: +61 08 9214 9737 “We are also planning to do some drilling lat- ber of local community members being unable
Website: lithiumenergy.com.au er this year on another prospect about 100km to appear at the approvals meeting.
Social media: @LithiumEnergy_ south of Burke where we’ve done quite a bit “We’re expecting to get approval to start
of sampling and geophysics as well. We have
Email: [email protected] identified the opportunity to chase a resource work any day now,” Johnson said.
“[Once final approval happens] we’ll be get-
Key personnel: William Johnson similar to the one at Burke.” ting started on the ground straight away, which
(executive chairman), Farooq Khan Lithium carbonate and hydroxide prices should be very soon. We’ve planned both geo-
(director), Peter Smith (director) boosted 25% and 12.5% respectively in early physics and drilling to test the prospectivity.”
Focus: Lithium and graphite, Argentina January and broker Credit Suisse increased its
and Queensland forecasts off the back of those gains. Experts – Fraser Palamara
attribute the price climb to tight supplies and
Page 46 FeBRUaRY 2022 aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT
Comment:
Locksley Resources Limited Most notably, Lycaon boasts two
exploration licences (nickel, copper and
ASX: LKY PGEs) proximal to Chalice Mining Ltd’s
prolific Julimar discovery. Also aptly
Listing date: July 8 named the Julimar project, Lycaon began
IPO amount: $5 million auger geochemical sampling there in
Share price range since listing: 13-29c December and plans to undertake a
Address: Level 11, 216 St Georges helicopter EM survey early this year.
Terrace, Perth WA 6000 Exploration drilling is also mooted for
Tel: +61 8 9481 0389 Lunnon Metals Limited the company’s Rocky Dam project this
quarter.
Website: locksleyresources.com.au
Social Media: ASX: LM8
Email: woodhams@locksleyresources. Lykos Metals Ltd
com.au Listing date: June 16 ASX: LYK
Key personnel: Steve Woodham IPO amount: $15 million
(managing director), Adam Giles (non- Share price range since listing: 34-70c Listing date: October 21
executive chair), Steve Brockhurst (non- Address: Level 3, 35 Outram Street, IPO amount: $12 million
executive director) West Perth WA 6005 Share price range since listing: 25-45c
Focus: Copper and gold, New South Tel: +61 8 9226 0887 Address: Level 48, 152-158 St Georges
Wales Website: lunnonmetals.com.au Terrace, Perth WA 6000
Comment: Social Media: @LunnonMetals Tel: +61 8 9480 2500
Incorporated in 2018, Locksley took to Email: [email protected] Website: lykosmetals.com
the bourse last year with its single play, Key personnel: Liam Twigger (non- Social Media: @LykosMetals
the Tottenham copper-gold project in the executive chairperson), Edmund
Lachlan Fold Belt. The project features Ainscough (managing director), Ian Email: [email protected]
a 30km strike over a volcanic-hosted Junk (non-executive director) Key personnel: Matthew Worner (non-
massive sulphide corridor as part of a 470 executive chairman), Mladen Stevanović
sq km package. November RC drill results Focus: Nickel and gold, Western (managing director), Miloš Bošnjaković
noted 10.3% copper and 6.9 g/t gold. Australia (executive director)
Comment: Focus: Nickel, copper, gold and others,
Bosnia-Herzegovina
Lode Resources Ltd Having spent his formative years in the
Kambalda region, Ainscough and his
ASX: LDR team are seeking to give the prospective Comment:
Managing director Mladen Stevanović
nickel its deserved justice that went explained to Paydirt sister publication
Listing date: July 2 unnoticed during gold rushes of the Gold Mining Journal in January that
IPO amount: $5.11 million past. Ground surrounding the historic Lykos had every intention of being a
Foster mine has gone without modern
Share price range since listing: 11-43c exploration for nearly 25 years. Diamond solely battery minerals explorer but
Address: Level 30, 264-278 George hole assays from the Foster project came across a 2sq km gold and copper
Street, Sydney NSW 2000 returned 7.7m @ 2.92% in January. anomaly gold at its Sinjakovo project last
year. “We found strong gold anomalism,”
Tel: +61 2 9008 1381 Stevanović said. “It was an interesting and
Website: loderesources.com Lycaon Resources Ltd new discovery for us.” Assays from the
Social Media: @LodeResources Sockovac project returned grades of 5.45
Email: [email protected] ASX: LYN g/t gold, 1,330 g/t silver, 7.21% lead and
5.66% zinc in December.
Key personnel: Andrew Van Heyst Listing date: November 17
(chair), Ted Leschke (managing director) IPO amount: $5 million
Focus: Copper and silver, NSW
Share price range since listing: 32-72c
Comment: Address: Level 2, 22 Mount Street, Perth
Lode hit the bourse in July with WA 6000
brownfields projects in the underexplored Tel: +61 8 6188 8181
New England Fold Belt, a region Website: lycaonresources.com
representing one exploration hole for Social Media: @Lycaon_ASX
every 13 drilled into the well traversed
Lachlan Fold Belt. This is despite the New Email: [email protected]
England Belt having a history of mining Key personnel: Patrick Burke (non-
from the 1850s to World War I. Phase 1 executive chairman), Ranko Matic (non-
drilling at the Webbs Consol project noted executive director), Thomas Langley
results such as 4.4m @ 800 g/t silver in (technical director)
December. Focus: Gold, silver, copper, nickel and
PGE, Western Australia
aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT FeBRUaRY 2022 Page 47
IPos
M3 Mining Ltd
ASX: M3M
Listing date: July 29
IPO amount: $4.6 million
Share price range since listing: 17.5-44.5c
Address: Level 1, 3 Ord Street, West
Perth WA 6005
Tel: +61 08 6365 5200
Website: m3mining.com.au
Social Media: @M3Mining
Email: [email protected]
Key personnel: Russell Davis (non-
executive chairman), Simon Eley
(executive director), Eddie King (non-
executive director) Medallion Metals Ltd
Focus: Copper and gold, Western
Australia ASX: MM8
Listing date: March 22 Social Media: @metaltigerplc
Comment:
M3 brought two exploration plays to the IPO amount: $12.5 million Email: [email protected]
bourse; the Victoria Bore copper project Share price range since listing: 18-34.5c Key personnel: Charles Hall (non-
and the Edjudina gold project. The former Address: Suite 1, 11 Ventnor Avenue, executive chairman), Michael McNeilly
has proof of historic, shallow high-grade West Perth, WA 6005 (chief executive), Neville Bergin (non-
copper but a lack of modern exploration. Tel: +61 8 6424 8700 executive director), David Wargo (non-
Downhole EM works began in December executive director)
and results from a maiden 1,200m RC Website: medallionmetals.com.au Focus: Copper, gold, silver and zinc,
drill programme are expected early this Social Media: @MM8_Medallion Botswana
year. Email: [email protected]
Key personnel: John Fitzgerald (chair), Comment:
Mamba Exploration Ltd Paul Bennett (managing director), Also listed on the LSE trading at 20 GBX
Tony James (non-executive director), per share as of January, Metal Tiger holds
ASX: M24 Edmund Ainscough (non-executive a diverse portfolio of investments, notably
director) Kalahari Metals Ltd which recently
Listing date: February 5 Focus: Gold, Western Australia completed a 2,949m drill programme in
IPO amount: $7 million Botswana. Kalahari is a JV with Cobre
Ltd, alongside another investment
Share price range since listing: 16-36.5c Comment: partnership with Metal Tiger through the
Address: Level 11, 216 St Georges Listed in March after pausing its original newly listed Armada Metals Ltd which
Terrace, Perth WA 6000 IPO plans last year when it failed to raise joined the ASX in December.
Tel: +61 8 9481 0389 the required capital but succeeded after
bringing in Argonaut as a key broker.
Website: mambaexploration.com.au The company is vying to release an Midas Minerals Ltd
Social Media: @MambaLimited updated mineral resource for its Gem
Email: [email protected] deposit in March, with roughly 30,000m of ASX: MM1
drilling data. Results reported in January
Key personnel: Justin Boylson (non- included 11m @ 10.2 g/t gold, including Listing date: September 7
executive chairman), Mike Dunbar 3m @ 35.9 g/t. IPO amount: $6 million
(managing director), Simon Andrew
(non-executive director) Share price range since listing: 13.5-29c
Focus: Gold, nickel and copper, Metal Tiger Plc Address: Ground Floor, 24 Outram St,
Western Australia West Perth WA 6005
ASX: MM8 Tel: +61 8 6383 6595
Comment: Listing date: May 27 Website: midasminerals.com
Just the second hole drilled into Mamba’s Social Media: @MidasMinerals
priority Black Hills target – a 6km ultramafic IPO amount: $10 million
trend just 30km northeast of Chalice Mining Share price range since listing: 31-57c Email: [email protected]
Ltd’s Julimar discovery – returned multiple Address: Weston Farm House, Weston Key personnel: Sara Kelly (chair), Nick
zones of sulphide mineralisation in December. Down Lane, Weston Colley, Winchester, Katris (executive director), Michael
Back-to-back indications of sulphides Hants, United Kingdom, SO21 3AG Naylor (non-executive director), Mick
prompted the company to drill a third Tel: +44 (0) 20 3287 5349 Wilson (non-executive director)
diamond hole to gather a better geological Focus: Gold, nickel, copper and PGEs,
understanding. Results are imminent. Website: metaltigerplc.com Western Australia
Page 48 FeBRUaRY 2022 aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT
Comment: New South Wales director), Gary Powell (non-executive
Midas is focused on the Yilgarn Craton director)
of Western Australia, particularly the Comment: Focus: Gold, Western Australia
Weebo gold project which is situated near Another of several ASX debutants
the Thunderbox mine. Weebo has seen targeting the Lachlan Fold Belt. Mitre’s Comment:
limited work over the past 20 years but ground surrounds historic mines A portfolio of works surrounding the
maiden drilling by Midas returned hits such as the Dargues gold mine, the Malcolm Mining Centre in the Central
such as 1m @ 18.2 g/t gold and 2m @ Moruya gold mine and the Bimbimbie Eastern Goldfields, east of Leonora.
12.5 g/t in December. group of mines. XRF readings at the Proximal neighbours include St Barbara
company’s Batemans project unearthed Ltd, Red 5 Ltd and Northern Star
39 different elements across 1,000 Resources Ltd. The company released
Minerals 260 Ltd samples – favourable to silver and results of shallow gold mineralisation in
rare earths. A project geologist has January, following 860m of RC drilling,
ASX: MI6 since been engaged to spearhead a with results such as 1m @ 7.06 g/t gold
Listing date: October 12 programme of works. and 4m @ 2.99 g/t.
IPO amount: $30 million
Share price range since listing: 45-83.5c Monger Gold Ltd Mt Monger Resources Ltd
Address: Level 2, 1292 Hay Street, West ASX: MMG
Perth, WA 6005 ASX: MTM
Tel: +61 8 6556 6020 Listing date: July 6 Listing date: July 15
Website: minerals260.com.au IPO amount: $5 million IPO amount: $5 million
Social Media: @minerals260 Share price range since listing: 20-31c Share price range since listing: 13-25.5c
Email: [email protected] Address: Suite 602, 566 St Kilda Road, Address: Suite 2, 38 Colin Street, West
Key personnel: David Richards Melbourne VIC 3004 Perth WA 6005
(managing director), Anthony Cipriano Tel: +61 8 6245 2490 Tel: +61 8 6391 0112
(non-executive chairman), Tim Goyder Website: mongergold.com.au
(non-executive director), Craig Williams Social Media: @MongerGold Website: mtmongerresources.com.au
(non-executive director), Emma Scotney Social Media: @MtMongerRes
(non-executive director) Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected]
Focus: Gold, platinum, palladium, nickel Key personnel: Peretz Schapiro (non- Key personnel: John Hannaford (non-
and copper, Western Australia executive chair), Andrew Graham (non- executive chairman), Lachlan Reynolds
executive director), Romy Hersham (managing director), David Izzard (non-
Comment: (non-executive director) executive director)
Demerged from Liontown Resources Focus: Gold, Western Australia
Ltd to take care of all non-lithium assets, Focus: Gold, Western Australia
such as the Moora and Koojan (a JV Comment: Comment:
with Lachlan Star Ltd) projects in the By time of print, a 2,790m RC drill Mt Monger joined the ASX in July with
Julimar province, covering 1,100 sq km. programme was expected to begin at two projects totalling up to 3,100 sq km
Both projects are proximal to Chalice the company’s Mt Monger North project, of prospective ground. Its namesake
Mining Ltd’s breakout Julimar discovery targeting the Providence prospect. project sits 70km south of Kalgoorlie and
and Moora was acquired prior to such. Previous drill results at Providence the company’s presence there is the first
A $6.7 million exploration programme include 8m @ 16.15 g/t gold and 8m @ opportunity for exploration since the early
was accelerated in December, with initial 31.84 g/t. The current drill programme will 2000s. The project boasts drill-ready
assay results expected by time of print. build upon such results from November targets and an existing shallow gold
and the company will turn its focus to resource which is non-JORC compliant.
a maiden resource estimate after the
Mitre Mining Corporation Ltd completion of works. Drilling is imminent.
ASX: MMC
Mt Malcolm Mines NL NickelSearch Ltd
Listing date: September 30
IPO amount: $5 million ASX: M2M ASX: NIS
Share price range since listing: 18-28.5c Listing date: September 10 Listing date: October 18
Address: Level 5, 491 Kent Street, IPO amount: $8 million IPO amount: $10 million
Sydney NSW 2000 Share price range since listing: 14-25c
Tel: +61 3 9614 0550 Share price range since listing: 11-29c
Website: mitremining.com.au Address: Level 3, 88 William Street, Address: Suite 14, 92 Walters Drive,
Osborne Park WA 6017
Perth WA 6000
Social Media: @mitre_mining Tel: +61 8 6244 6617 Tel: +61 8 6184 4983
Email: [email protected] Website: mtmalcolm.com.au Website: nickelsearch.com
Key personnel: Clinton Carey Social Media: @M2M_NL Social Media: @NickelSearch
(managing director), Patrick Gowans
(non-executive director), Adrien Wing Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected]
(non-executive director) Key personnel: Robert Downey Key personnel: David Royle (interim
Focus: Gold, lithium and base metals, (chairman), Trevor Dixon (managing executive chairman), Nicole Duncan
aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT FeBRUaRY 2022 Page 49
IPos
(managing director)
Focus: Nickel, Western Australia Nimy hunts Nimy Resources Ltd
Comment: ASX: NIM
The company’s flagship Carlingup new find Listing date: November 22
nickel project holds an existing resource
of 171,000t contained nickel and is IPO amount: $6.44 million
adjacent to First Quantum Minerals imy Resources Ltd is putting faith in Share price range since listing: 19.5-
Ltd’s Ravensthorpe nickel operation. Nrevered geological consultants New- 32.5c
NickelSearch launched into 2022 with exco to add The Mons project near For- Address: 254 Adelaide Terrace, Perth
a field campaign and completion of a restania to its growing list of nickel explo- WA 6000
helicopter EM survey. Targets generated ration success stories.
from the studies will be followed up this Newexco is nickel royalty, having con- Tel: +61 8 9261 4600
quarter. Website: nimy.com.au
tributed to several discoveries including
Flying Fox and Spotted Quoll (Western Social Media: @nimyresources
Areas Ltd), Nova (IGO Ltd), Savannah Email: [email protected]
North (Panoramic Resources Ltd) and Key personnel: Simon Lill (non-
many more. executive chairman), Luke Hampson
Nimy kicked off a 32sq km moving-loop (executive director), Christian Price
EM survey in December and a diamond (managing director)
drilling programme followed in January. Focus: Nickel, WA
Drilling is reaching depths up to 600m,
which is the furthest any exploration in the
area has gone down below.
Results from the EM survey will define
follow-up drill targets.
Nimy managing director Christian Price
said Newexco’s resume speaks for itself. had climbed to an 11-year-high of
“They’ve got a pretty good track record $US24,435/t. It is no secret the EV revo-
in WA looking for nickel sulphides and lution in the automotive industry is driv-
Nickelx Ltd they have done so for a number of years,” ing the nickel price to new heights – with
an effect on other critical battery miner-
Price told Paydirt. “Our team and chief
ASX: NKL geologist Stuart Peterson got Newexco als such as graphite, lithium and copper
on board to assist the with EM studies. also expected to increase in demand by
Listing date: May 7 There are guys are on the ground right up to four times by 2030.
No longer is Tesla the only poster boy
IPO amount: $7 million now doing the moving-loop work and for the EV revolution as well, joined by
Share price range since listing: 10.5- Newexco will be the ones interpreting the Volkswagen, General Motors and Chev-
26.5c results.” rolet who all either currently offer EV
Data from the moving-loop study could
Address: Level 3, The Read Buildings, be delivered as early as the end of Febru- models or are developing at least one.
16 Milligan Street, Perth WA 6000 ary. BHP Ltd, with a finger on the demand
Tel: +61 (08) 9322 7600 Nimy listed in November after a $6.44 pulse, signed a $130 million investment
in January into Kabanga Nickel Ltd for its
Website: nickelxlimited.com million IPO and has since seen its share nickel, copper and cobalt deposit in Tan-
Email: [email protected] price jump 43% to 32c/share as of mid- zania. This deal would fast track pre-de-
January.
Key personnel: Jonathan Downes Price attributed Nimy’s healthy run on velopment with first production targeted
(chairman), Matthew Gauci (managing the ASX to a perfect storm scenario with in 2025.
director) low nickel stockpiles, rising spot prices Pegging a promising nickel project on
Focus: Gold, nickel and copper, and a growing hunger for the commodity Australian land also welcomes another
Western Australia driven by the EV market. ethically sourced and professional nickel
“All those [aspects] combined has high- opportunity as automakers and produc-
Comment: lighted a shortage much earlier than pre- ers stress the importance of ESG funda-
Exploring in Western Australia’s Albany viously predicted in the market,” he said. mentals.
Fraser Belt, the company’s flagship Price mired at Nimy’s opportunity with In jurisdictions such as Indonesia,
Biranup project is adjacent to AngloGold its 1,761sq km tenement in WA nickel where cheap low-grade nickel pig iron is
Ashanti Ltd’s Tropicana gold mine. heartland. sourced, coal-fired power is often used
Although listing on the ASX with intentions “To find a district-scale nickel deposit, to produce the resource for stainless
of being a nickel and copper explorer, you usually have to go looking in places steel and other applications.
Nickelx appointed DDH1 to undertake such as Brazil, or Tanzania where BHP Kabanga Nickel chief executive Chris
1,000m of diamond drilling on the Black recently invested,” he said. “For us to Showalter publicly expressed that BHP’s
Dragon and Red Dragon gold targets at have a tenure like ours within 400km of investment into their deposit was crucial-
Biranup in December. Perth is a pretty rare thing…it’s exciting ly ESG-sound for both “[BHP] and the in-
as a junior.” vestor community around the world”.
At time of print, LME nickel prices – Fraser Palamara
Page 50 FeBRUaRY 2022 aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT
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