20 Mining Companies for 2024 – Part II (G-Z)
As we noted in our introduction to Part I of our mining roundup, it’s 2023 has been a trying time for most natural resources small caps. Here we consider the prospects for 10 more small cap miners.
Golden Metal Resources
Golden Metal Resources (AIM:GMET), which listed in May, has had a positive first few months on the markets as it has reported promising results for a cluster of tungsten, gold, lithium, copper and silver prospects in Nevada.
The Pilot Mountain project, an advanced exploration and mineral resource definition stage project covering an area of 14.80 km2 is centred around four existing mineral deposits with significant skarn-style tungsten-copper-silver-zinc mineralisation. The Project consists of 176 active lode mining claims and 4 filed mill site claims.
The Kibby Basin Lithium Project, less than 5 km to the southeast of Pilot Mountain, covers two claim packages prospective for lithium brine mineralisation. The southern claim package is less than 250 metres from a 2022 drillhole which returned a significant interval of lithium brine mineralisation determined to be open in all directions. The Golconda Summit project is an exploration stage gold and silver project situated at the confluence of the Getchell and Battle Mountain – Eureka metallogenic trends, consisting of 44 lode mining claims, covering a total area of approximately 3.22 km2. The Garfield Project is a copper-gold-silver prospect consisting of 39 lode mining claims covering 3.23 km2 located within a north-south trending copper-gold porphyry/skarn belt: porphyry deposits, characterised by lower grade but bulk tonnage deposits, are one of the worlds most important sources of copper and silver as well as gold. Exploration to date has included detailed geochemical sampling and follow up analysis highlighting the presence of both skarn-type and porphyry style mineralisation and alteration at the ‘High-Grade Zone’. The Stonewall project is an exploration stage gold-silver property prospective for epithermal gold-silver mineralisation consisting of 19 lode mining claims covering 1.59 km2 located on the northern flank of Stonewall Mountain, approximately 24 km south-east of the historic gold mining town of Goldfield.
This year GMET has announced positive progress at Garfield, Golconda and Pilot Mountain. The results of a high-resolution soil geochemical sampling survey, published in May, indicated the presence of a significant copper system at Garfield, featuring the discovery of two significant copper zones, which returned individual Cu-in-soil results of up to 851 ppm and 950 ppm copper in zones coincident with historical rock sampling results, which returned up to 2.6pc and 5.53pc copper in the two key areas.
Assay testing following ground exploration, published this month, has highlighted ‘extensive high-grade copper, silver and gold mineralisation’. Mineralisation ‘extends over a large footprint which indicates the potential for Garfield to host a material copper deposit’. A further update said the ‘overlimit results have far exceeded the Company’s expectations with significant high-grade copper, gold and silver now delineated over a greater than 1.5km x 0.5km footprint at the High-Grade Zone’, providing ‘further evidence that, subject to further exploration work, Garfield could host a significant copper deposit.’ CEO Oliver Friesen said: ‘I have been involved with many exploration projects in my career, including many copper-gold-silver porphyry projects, and it is very rare to see one move up the potential value curve so quickly.’
At Golconda, GMET has identified Carlin-type gold targets based on rock sampling results that returned significant arsenic anomalism, the main pathfinder mineral associated with Carlin-type systems. 11 of the 52 samples collected returned above 250ppm As, suggesting the presence of a ‘feeder zone’. And a survey across Pilot Mountain identified five high-priority un-drilled exploration targets, opening the possibility of significantly increasing the size of in-ground resources during future drilling campaigns. In June the company signed a Letter of Intent with US-based Global Tungsten & Powders LLC for a tungsten concentrate off-take agreement for the Pilot Mountain. GMET has also staked the Kibby Basin Lithium Project, where it has identified a significant conductor.
Keen to secure non-dilutive funds, the company is engaging with the US government regarding the possibility of securing Federal funding for the accelerated development of Pilot Mountain: the US has listed tungsten as a critical mineral used for defence and other industrial applications. The company reported £1,371,000 cash as at 30 June 2023.
GMET’s bright start has pushed its share price to 9.25p at the time of writing, up 10.7pc this year, taking its market cap to £8.15m. The company’s value has surged by more than 16pc in the past month on the back of the promising results at Garfield.
Helium One Global
Helium One Global (AIM:HE1) has suffered on the markets this year as it has continued on a long journey towards defining the potential of Tanzanian licences prospective for the rate gas helium.
The company’s Rukwa, Balangida, and Eyasi projects, spanning some 2,965 km2, lie near surface seeps with helium concentrations ranging up to 10.6pc helium by volume. HE1’s flagship Rukwa Project is the most advanced, defined by a substantial subsurface database, and clarified by a 2021 drilling campaign which identified reservoir and seal with multiple prospective intervals from basin to near surface within a working helium system.
HE1 faced challenges through much of 2023 battling in a tight East African market to secure a suitable rig for phase II drilling programme at Rukwa’s Tai 3, the best defined prospect in the company’s portfolio. In the meantime the company issued a CPR for Tai which reported an unrisked best estimate of helium potentially recoverable from undiscovered accumulations of 2.8 Bcf, a 61pc increase in the original resource estimate from the previous 2020 CPR, and an unrisked high case estimate of 7.1 Bcf, 30pc higher than the previous forecast.
Drilling finally got underway in Q3, the Tai 3 well reaching total depth in November. Initial results showed elevated helium shows up to six times above background in the prospect’s Lower Karoo Group and Basement targets. HE1 said completed wireline logging and downhole sampling had yielded helium concentrations up to 8,320 ppm helium, which measure significantly above normal background levels of approximately 5ppm. Drilling had provided ‘a much greater understanding of the active working helium system in the region’ allowing the identification of a new well location on the licence’s Itumbula prospect. The company will return to Tai to examine the Basement target more closely, but has now moved the rig to Itumbula. This second well will be spud early next month – subject to funding – targeting a large, deep seated basement fault and additional play concept.
Away from Rukwa, HE1 completed an analysis of its proprietary high resolution Falcon Airborne Gravity Gradiometry and aero-magnetic data over the Balangida Rift Basin, which has shown high-grade helium macro seeps enriched with other high-value noble gasses, the latest field work sampling showing 6.2pc-6.4pc helium and 2pc argon. The company applied the same workflow to the Eyasi Rift Basin, gaining an improved understanding of rift geometry and subsurface structuration.
HE1 has required funding to carry out continued exploration, raising £9.9m last December, £6.8m in September, and another £6.1m earlier this month to fund the Itumbula programme. HE1’s last set of results stated cash of $9,600,786, and a loss for 2022 of $2,672,915.
After riding high a couple of years ago HE1 has frustrated the markets over the past 18 months, its price falling more than 90pc this year as it has struggled to record hoped-for progress and engaged in multiple dilutive fundraises. At the time of writing the company was valued at 0.24p with a market cap of £2.3m. The prize, though elusive, remains enticing however: a big deposit of one of the world’s rarest commodities. If the company can secure funding for further exploration this is an alternative natural resources play that might yet come good.
Jangada Mines
Battery metals development company Jangada Mines (AIM:JAN) has continued to define the potential of its Pitombeiras Vanadium Project in Brazil, while building its ties with a company developing a technology allowing more efficient critical minerals extraction.
JAN’s headline asset, its wholly owned Pitombeiras Vanadium Project in the state of Ceará has a Total Mineral Resource Estimate of 8.26 Mt with 62pc classified at the higher confidence Measured & Indicated Mineral Resources category. A Technical Report published last year reported robust economics including 100.3pc post-tax IRR and $96.5m post-tax NPV with an 8pc discount rate. Sample tests earlier this year indicated promising recovery and purity rates, the highest being rates being 86.73pc TiO2, 91.19pc Fe2O3, and 95.88pc vanadium. JAN is exploring options to economically extract titanium and vanadium at the project, next steps including upscaling testwork to deliver an additional economic study to further explore the project parameters.
JAN has a related (7.78pc) interest in Fodere Titanium Limited, pioneering technology that extracts critical minerals from mining waste dumps and primary materials, specifically vanadium and titanium. Fodere enables the recovery of 99pc of minerals from various tailings feedstocks in a single process, significantly reducing operational costs and benefitting the environment. The company is designing a pre-commercial plant in South Africa to test the technology’s scalability, with commissioning targeted for mid-2024. A $70m commercial plant is envisaged. JAN is using Fodere to process its Pitombeiras production, and has obtained exclusive rights for the technology through South America. The company says there is ‘excellent economic potential’ for a processing plant at Pitombeiras.
JAN has a 10.5pc interest in Blencowe Resources PLC (LON:BRES), covered in Part I of our mining roundup. BRES is advancing a graphite project at Orom-Cross in Uganda, currently focused on delivering a Definitive Feasibility Study is on track. Orom-Cross has a JORC resource of 24.5 Mt based on drilling undertaken on less than 5pc of the project area, part of which benefits from a 21-year mining licence. JAN also has a 0.756pc holding in KEFI Gold and Copper PLC and a 0.58pc stake in ValOre Metals Corp: JAN raised CAD$3m from sale of part of its investment in ValOre earlier this year to progress development at Pitombeiras.
The company reported cash of $768,000 in its most recent set of results, together with a total loss of CAD$493,000. JAN’s value has fallen some 50pc this year in a rough market, and is currently priced at 1.66p with a market cap of £3.5m. The company will hope to show greater evidence of progress towards developing what seems a promising resource in 2024.
Landore Resources
Landore Resources (AIM:LND) has battled against harsh market winds this year as it seeks to advance its precious and battery metals projects in eastern Canada, notably its 100pc owned BAM Gold Project, located on the Junior Lake Property in Northwestern Ontario.
The Junior Lake property, approximately 235 kilometres north-northeast of Thunder Bay, is host to the BAM Gold Deposit, the B4-7 Nickel-Copper-Cobalt-PGEs deposit and the adjacent Alpha PGEs zone. Junior Lake also contains the VW Nickel deposit and numerous other highly prospective mineral occurrences including lithium.
Works to-date have brought the BAM Gold Project’s in-situ resource to 49,231,000 tonnes at 1.0 g/t for 1,496,000 ounces of gold, including 30,965,000 tonnes at 1.0 g/t for 1,029,000 ounces gold in the Indicated Category. A 2022 preliminary economic assessment indicated that under certain conditions the BAM Gold Project generates pre-tax and post-tax NPVs of, respectively, $333.6m and $231.2m and pre-tax and post-tax real IRRs of 87.4pc and 66.7pc. The BAM Gold Project has an after-tax simple pay back of 1.25 years from the start of production or 2.25 years from the start of the project.
This year LND has focused on completing a Pre-Feasibility Study for the BAM Gold Project to advance it towards production, concentrating on the resource’s underground potential, advancing the existing Inferred resource into an Indicated Resource together with infilling the exploration targets to the immediate east and west of the current resource.
Exploration has also focused on other known gold prospects in the region. Drilling last year along strike from the BAM Gold and B4-7 Nickel- Copper-Cobalt-PGEs Deposits intersected gold and strategic metals mineralisation in all areas. Preparatory work is currently underway to follow up on the promising drill and soil results with the aim of expanding the BAM Gold Deposit to the west and east, as well as further delineating strategic metals trends. LND says ‘possible future development of the other known gold prospects along this highly prospective 31 kilometre long Archean greenstone belt bodes well for the future of the Junior Lake Property potentially hosting a multi-million ounce gold deposit.’
This year LND sought to raise funds for the Deposit’s Pre-Feasibility Study by entering into an option agreement with Green Technology Metals Limited for the right to purchase a significant interest in Junior Lake’s lithium deposits. The Lithium Claim Blocks, located in the northern part of the Junior Lake Property, consist of 10,856 hectares and host a number of lithium-bearing pegmatites, with three drill-ready prospects identified from previous exploration activity. The sale was executed in October, Green Technology paying CAD$1m for a 100pc interest in the blocks.
LND planned to raise a further CAD$5m through a private placement in November, the funds designated for BAM exploration and facilitating the company’s proposed dual listing on Canada’s TSX Venture Exchange. But earlier this month the company concluded that ‘turbulent market conditions worldwide’ had ‘created significant fund raising challenges’, prompting it to ‘defer its fund raising efforts until, inter alia, there is a sustained improvement in market conditions.’ LND will ‘revisit financing opportunities during Q1 2024’. The company’s most recent set of results stated cash of £397,109 as at 30 June, and a loss before income tax of £822,251.
LND’s value has fallen 80pc this year as it has faced challenging conditions in raising funds to support continued exploration. The company’s price was 3.12p at the time of writing, taking its market cap to £3.8m. Better conditions in 2024 may help secure the funds it needs, and a return to value.
Lexington Gold
Lexington Gold (AIM:LEX) continued to elaborate the potential of four gold projects, in North and South Carolina situated in the prolific Carolina Super Terrane (CST), the site of the first US gold rush in the early 1800s. The company also acquired an interest in another historic resource, the Witwatersrand gold fields of South Africa.
Early in the year LEX completed a soil and surface sampling programme targeting gold, silver and base metals at the Jennings-Pioneer Project, a cluster of greenfield exploration prospects at the Barite Hill Gold district in South Carolina. Results identified 13 gossans (targets at surface) within three separate mineralisation trends, and yielded evidence of US critical mineral by-products including barite and tellurium. A surface trenching and sampling campaign at the Argo Project project, a historic gold prospect last mined in the 19th century, produced some 440 multi-element assay samples indicating high-grade surface mineralisation at the site’s Northeast and Southern workings.
LEX also has an interest in the 179.66 acre Jones-Keystone-Loflin Project combining the Jones-Keystone and Loflin Properties mined by small prospectors during the 19th century until the outbreak of the Civil War, and again up to the Great Depression. Pits, trenches, shafts and glory holes at several workings offer evidence of widespread gold mineralisation, with historic grades ranging between 0.5 and 2.5 g/t. A JORC Resource estimate states a resource of approximately two million tonnes at 1 g/t gold for 65,000 oz of contained gold, and highlights the potential for additional discoveries. The company’s Carolina Belle Project, in Montgomery County produced 50,000 ounces of gold until a 1916 dispute between the neighbouring mines ended further exploration and production.
LEX branched beyond the US in the summer, acquiring a ‘game-changing’ 76pc interest in White Rivers Exploration Proprietary Limited, a major tenement holder in the Witwatersrand gold fields of South Africa, with tenement interests covering approximately 89,499 hectares offering internally estimated potential resources of over 37 million ounces of gold. The Witwatersrand gold fields area was historically the largest single gold producing district in the world producing two billion ounces over the past century.
The region is estimated to have a further 1.2 billion ounces of gold resource. White Rivers’s Kroonstad project, has an independently estimated non-code compliant gold exploration resource target of between 6.06 million ounces and 62.41 million ounces with a gold grade of between 4.96 g/t and 11.54 g/t: LEX believes a multi-million ounce MRE can be established in respect of White Rivers’s existing asset portfolio. LEX raised £2.5m in support of the acquisition in July. Drilling at White Rivers’s Bothaville Project in the Witwatersrand Gold Basin got underway earlier this month. The campaign, comprising four mother holes, aims to confirm and expand the area of gold mineralisation intersected in historic third party drilling, and is expected to take two to three months to complete.
LEX’s last set of results, for H1 2023, reported cash of $0.28m, total assets of $5.2m and a net loss from continuing operations of $0.4m. The company’s share price has declined 30pc this year to 3.8p, taking its market cap to just over £14m. Progress at Witwatersrand may trigger renewed interest in LEX in 2024.
Panther Metals
Panther Metals (LON:PALM) has continued to test its cluster of mineral deposits and discoveries in Canada and Australia. Prospective investors should make sure to follow PALM’s fast moving RNS stream to appreciate the full range of the company’s activities.
One of the company’s principal activities this year has been the elaboration of the discovery of a new volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) mineral system at its Obonga Project, prospective for copper, platinum group metals. Significant zinc and flake graphite intersections have also uncovered in the course of the year, and project area has been extended through the acquisition of 171 additional mining claims covering prospective for a variety of critical minerals, including uranium, rare earth and lithium.
In February PALM folded its Big Bear Project in Canada into a new venture, Fulcrum Metals, in which it retains a 20pc interest. During a busy autumn Fulcrum has staked three new claims to extend its Charlot-Neely Lake uranium-gold project, and reported high grade intercepts at its Tully Gold Project.
The company has also reported news from the Manitou Lakes Project in Ontario, targeting more than 200 known gold occurrences. Initial exploration has identified numerous gold bearing structures and favourable geological host rocks through early-stage mapping and surface sampling. Two target areas, the West Limb Gold Property and the Glass Reef Gold Property, both host historic gold mines which have never been systematically explored using modern techniques or drill tested. In late Manitou was granted an Exploration Permit which will facilitate induced polarisation and electromagnetic geophysics surveys over an exciting shear zone gold anomaly as well as surface stripping and drilling of resulting gold targets. Inaugural drilling at the Project concluded in December, inspection of drill core confirming hosted quartz vein mineralisation.
PALM has interests in several gold prospects. The company’s Dotted Lake Project, approximately 16 km from Barrick Gold’s prolific Hemlo Gold Mine, is pursuing a cluster of gold and base metal targets within a shared geology. An initial drilling programme in 2021 confirmed the presence of gold mineralisation within the same system, with anomalous gold continuing along strike and present within the surrounding area. The company has submitted a drilling permit application for Dotted Lake over an area that is considered prospective for ultramafic intrusive related nickel and base metal mineralisation, over which PALM has flown airborne geophysics, and which has produced anomalous nickel, cobalt and copper soil sampling anomalies. The drilling permit should allow up to 15 diamond drill holes as well as associated geophysics and trench sampling.
PALM has also taken a keen interest in the activities of its Australian subsidiary, Panther Australia, in which it retains a 23.54pc holding, notably a drilling campaign at the Coglia Nickel-Cobalt Project seeking to extend a 70.6 Mt Inferred Mineral Resource: all assays from the 5,320 metre programme were received last month.
PALM is dependent on periodic fundraises to continue its exploration, the most recent, worth £300,000, last month. The proceeds will be used to fund the inaugural diamond drilling programme at Manitou Lakes and to target gold on the Eagle-Manitou-Wabigoon Greenstone Belt in northwestern Ontario, Canada. The company reported a profit for the six months ended 30 June 2023 of £792,012, up from a loss of £65,793 for the previous period.
PALM has been entangled in the commodities slowdown this year, its price falling 25pc to 3.5p at the time of writing, moving its market cap to £3.25m. With so many irons in the fire the company remains an inexpensive option for gaining exposure to a wide range of exploration targets, as evidenced by the discovery at Obonga.
Power Metal Resources
Power Metal Resources (AIM: POW) continues to develop a portfolio brimming with uranium, gold, silver, nickel, copper, rare earths and base-metal interests. POW develops prospects internally or through joint ventures until ready for disposal through outright sale or IPO.
During 2023 POW has advanced interests across North America, Africa and Australia. The company has a 100pc interest in 17 uranium properties covering over 1000 km2 in the Athabasca Region of Saskatchewan, Canada, the largest ground footprint in the region held by a UK listed company. This year saw POW’s most extensive uranium exploration programme, with four of 10 properties so far yielding significant prospective uranium anomalies. A resurgence of interest in the uranium sector this year has seen considerable third party interest in the company’s Athabasca holdings: POW has already announced the disposal of two properties to Uranium Energy Exploration.
The company is forging ahead with another wholly owned North American interest, North Wind, where a lithium focused ground exploration programme conducted earlier this summer led to the identification of several pegmatites. Results from assay testing of outcrop rock samples from the identified pegmatites, together with those from extensive soil geochemical sampling at North Wind, are expected shortly.
In Africa, exploration work at the company’s wholly owned Tati Project has continued to validate mineralisation within an 8 km long gold trend, offering evidence of a potentially significant economic gold deposit. Work continues with further infill sampling focused on newly discovered target areas of gold mineralisation within the trend pending analysis of final results.
The company has an 87.71pc interest in the Molopo Farms Complex Project where exploration to date has confirmed the presence of nickel sulphides and platinum group elements. POW sees the potential for a district-scale nickel and PGE discovery at Molopo and is planning the next diamond drill programme accordingly. An October update reported that recently completed geophysical inversions have identified ‘the highest priority conductor to date at the Project’, located ‘where one would expect to find accumulations of significant nickel sulphides within a mafic/ultramafic complex’. POW is in discussion with third parties regarding joint ventures at both Tati and Molopo.
In Australia POW has a 49.9pc interest in New Ballarat Gold Plc, which has secured a significant ground footprint in the Victoria Goldfields of Australia, including two high grade former working gold mines. The JV partners are working to create a pathway to expedite the prospect’s commercial possibilities. POW also has a 58.59pc interest in First Development Resources Plc (FDR), which holds strategic exploration projects in Western Australia and the Northern Territory. FDR’s primary focus is the Eastern Anomaly within the Wallal Project in Western Australia, a magnetic bullseye target with a geophysical signature similar to Greatland Gold’s Havieron discovery in the Paterson Region. POW also has a 20pc interest in New Horizon Metals Pty Ltd, which holds projects in Queensland and South Australia, and is working towards the completion of a listing in the Australian capital markets.
POW’s near term objectives are to complete transactions with third parties looking to acquire business interests, enter into project joint ventures, or otherwise engage in the company’s various ongoing activities; focus on major metal discoveries within the company’s retained in-house portfolio through cost-effective exploration; expand the ownership of POW shares into new investor groups; and to identify new territories for future business opportunities and incoming project level investment, including notably Saudi Arabia and Oman, where the company recently conducted in-country meetings and site visits.
POW has been entangled in the commodities downturn, its shares dipping 40pc this year to 0.8p at the time of writing, taking the company’s market cap to £16.3m. With so many ventures the company has the diversification to benefit from an upswing in market conditions in 2024.
Rainbow Rare Earths
Rainbow Rare Earths (LON:RBW) has had a positive year developing its headline Phalaborwa Rare Earths Project in South Africa, and progressing the earlier stage Uberaba Project in Brazil.
The four rare earths that will be produced at Phalaborwa – neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium and terbium – are all designated as critical minerals further to their important role in the transition to the green economy, used within electric vehicles and wind turbines, as well as many other advanced technologies including those required for strategic defence purposes, such as guided missiles, drones, electronic displays, sonar and jet fighter engines.
The Phalaborwa Preliminary Economic Assessment has confirmed strong base line economics for the project, which has a base case NPV10 of $627m, an average EBITDA operating margin of 75pc and a payback period of less than two years. The project expected to reach commercial production in 2026, five years after RBW began work began on the project. Phalaborwa has a comparatively low cost base providing resilience against pricing volatility: there are no costs associated with drilling, blasting, crushing, milling and flotation to produce a mixed rare earth concentrate.
This year’s work at Phalaborwa has been oriented towards development of a Definitive Feasibility Study which the company plans to complete by the end of 2024, subject to funding. RBW intends to use a proprietary separation technique developed by and in conjunction with its partner K-Technologies, which simplifies the process of producing separated rare earth oxides (as against traditional solvent extraction), yielding cost and environmental benefits. A major component of this was the construction, commissioning and operation of the pilot plant to prove up our proprietary separation technology, both at scale and on a continuous basis, as well as to produce sufficient quantities of separated permanent magnet rare earth oxides for testing and marketing purposes. The plant produced the first mixed rare earth sulphate from Phalaborwa phosphogypsum material, confirming Phalaborwa as a rare earth producer able to provide a standalone revenue stream for the project. The material will be processed further to produce separated rare earth oxides.
RBW signed two significant commercial agreements earlier in 2023. The company entered an MoU with a Brazilian company in regards to its Uberaba phosphogypsum stack, which is expected to have comparable characteristics to Phalaborwa due to the similarities of the host rock, thereby ‘opening up the future for Rainbow to become a multi-asset producer of rare earth elements from secondary sources’. And it agreed a supply contract with LCU, a UK-based leader in the manufacture and supply of complex alloy systems and metals, according to which separated rare earth oxides produced by Phalaborwa will be manufactured by LCM into metal in order to create an alloy, to be supplied to permanent magnet manufacturers in the EU and the US.
Last month RBW reported that critical metals company TechMet Limited had been granted an option to invest $50m to take direct stake in Phalaborwa. A second announcement this month confirmed that the investment will be funded by the US Development Finance Corporation (DFC) under an initiative to fund the production of metals essential for clean energy technologies. Phalaborwa had been ‘recognised as having the potential to play a significant role in the establishment of a more diversified Western supply chain of the critical rare earths vital for electric vehicles and wind turbines.’
RBW’s most recent results stated cash of $8.1m after a May fundraise of $9.5m. The company estimates that ‘based on a review of cash flow forecasts for the period to 31 December 2024’ at least $3.4m of additional funding will need to be raised by then, depending on how quickly the Phalaborwa DFS is completed.
Optimism regarding Phalaborwa’s development propelled RBW’s share price 40pc higher this year, which stood at 13.34p at the time of writing, taking the company’s market cap to £85m.
URA Holdings
URA Holdings (LON:URAH) has spent a busy 2023 working to bring the Gravelotte Emerald Mine in South Africa back into production, after completing its acquisition of the historic mine early this year.
Once of the world’s largest emerald mines, known to have produced significant quantities of high-quality gems of colour and clarity, Gravelotte has been out of production for many years. But a JORC Resource report published late last yearestimated a mineral resource of 29 million carats from its two most recently producing areas, and a further exploration target of 164 to 344 million carats across other parts of the licence area: Gravelotte covers a large, fully compliant, mining licence area with significant unexplored regions.
Although mothballed for some time URAH says the site infrastructure including buildings, fencing and roads remain in existence and in essentially good condition. The company has spent much of the year repairing and upgrading infrastructure, including a major upgrade and refurbishment of electricity pylons and facilities, a large upgrade to security systems, electrical fencing, guarding, processed water storage facilities, haulage roads and accommodation.
URAH is aiming to bring the mine the mine back into profitable production on a modest scale with a view to future expansion. A Phase 1 processing plant allowing operations to restart is more than 65pc complete with only a few important items of processing equipment still required. Gravelotte will continue as an open pit operation although the mineralisation has been shown to continue at deeper levels. An update earlier this month reported that one critical item, a custom-made optical sorter, has been manufactured, and, when onsite, will allow trial mining and processing activities to ‘potentially e-start within a short period of months from now’ in Q1 2024.
URAH has raised significant funds this year ago support continued reconstruction. The company raised £330,000 in May, and another £1m last month. Chairman Edward Nealon said: ‘It is disappointing that market conditions forced us to raise the necessary funds at a price well below the levels at which it was trading earlier in the year but this round of finance does, as I have said, enable us to take the Company to a position where its potential value can begin to be realised.’
URAH’s value has fallen 50pc in the past six months as the company has gone to the markets for funds, taking its price down to 1.24p, and its market cap to £3.12m. But its price has fallen by a relatively modest 8.5pc over the full year. The company is however succeeding in bringing Gravelotte back into production on a modest budget: much will depend on initial mining results once operations can recommence.
Vast Resources
Vast Resources (AIM:VAST) has suffered a particularly tough year on the markets as it continues to build polymetallic production in Romania and widen its footprint in the Tajikistan mining industry.
VAST’s headline asset is its wholly owned, producing Baita Plai Polymetallic Mine in Transylvania’s Apuseni Mountains, host to Romania’s largest polymetallic mines. Baita Plai’s current Reserve & Resource Report states a total in-situ mineral resource of 15,695 tonnes copper equivalent, sustaining a mine production life of three to four years. But ongoing drilling indicates potential for a significant upgrade, suggesting a JORC compliant exploration target of 11.65 to 12.65 million tonnes, at 0.98-1.69pc copper, 0.23-0.57pc lead, and 0.17-0.62pc zinc.
VAST is upgrading the mine to support mechanised mining, including the introduction of long-hole stopping and a second milling circuit. The company’s most recent results demonstrated continued return on investment, milled production increasing from 38,108 metric tonnes to 60,750 metric tonnes.A subsequent update reported ongoing drilling and underground development highlighting ‘mineral rich areas in new locations that were not part of the current mine plan’.
VAST has a second significant Romanian asset, the Manaila Polymetallic Mine, currently under care and maintenance with a view to being brought back into production with the support of new investors. The larger Manaila Carlibaba licence area has a MRE of 3.6 million tonnes grading 0.93pc copper, 0.29pc lead, 0.63pc zinc, 0.23 g/t gold and 24.9 g/t silver with Inferred Mineral Resources of 1.0 million tonnes grading 1.10pc copper, 0.40pc lead, 0.84pc zinc, 0.24 g/t gold and 29.2 g/t silver. The company is further invested in Romania through its 29.41pc stake in the Blueberry Polymetallic Gold Project where a drilling programme is underway in support of a maiden JORC resource.
VAST also has significant interests in Tajikistan, notably a joint venture granting a 12.25pc royalty over all sales of non-ferrous concentrate and any other metals produced from the country’s Takob Mine processing facility. The partners have entered into an offtake contract with commodity giant Trafigura for the sale of the project’s bulk concentrates. The agreement envisages monthly production of approximately 7,000 tonnes of ore containing no less than 1.5-2pc lead, 1.2-1.4pc zinc and 27pc fluoride. Historically the mine contained 30 g/t silver and 1-2 g/t gold in situ. VAST also has an MoU with Open Joint Stock Company TALCO to process tailings produced at Takob, following visible signs of lead, zinc and precious metals, including gold, silver and platinum group metals during the initial soil sampling phase: initial surface survey results indicate potential for 1 to 3.3 million tonnes. Another MoU gives the company an interest in the Aprelevka gold mines in Tajikistan’s Tien Shan Belt.
The company’s cash reserves, which stood at $0.53m at the end of April, have been charged by two recent placings: VAST raised £1,701,000 in July, and another £1,819,350 in October. ‘Based on current strategy and updated expectations’ the company says it ‘does not believe it will need to raise further equity funding for the foreseeable future.’
VAST’s financial position is complicated by an $8.4m owed to Mercuria Energy Trading SA through a historic asset backed debt facility. But the company has been able to continue to extend terms for resettlement of the claim. And, beyond the prospect of further monetisation of its Romanian and Tajikistani assets, VAST has security in the form of the recovery of a historic parcel of 129,400 rough diamonds held in custody at the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, granted following a High Court Order in the company’s favour. The recovery is currently passing through the legal process.
VAST’s share price has subsided this year, falling nearly 40pc to 0.10p at the time of writing, taking its market cap to £4.7m. A turn in commodity prices would help the company find the funds it needs to continue to develop its investments.
