Juniors on Radar: 5 ASX Explorers to Watch Today

Australasian Metals completes Barrow Creek acquisition

Australasian Metals (ASX: A8G) has jumped 3% at the open after completing the acquisition of the Barrow Creek lithium project from Prodigy Gold (ASX: PRX). 

The agreement will see Australiasian Metals gain a 90% interest (with Prodigy retaining the other 10%) in 5 tenements that make up Barrow Creek. The project is located in the northern Arunta pegmatite province of the Northern Territory and covers about 880 sq.km.

Managing Director, Dr Qingtao Zeng commented:

“We are pleased to complete the acquisition of the Barrow Creek Lithium project. Through this acquisition, the Company’s landholding within the highly prospective Northern Arunta pegmatite province has increased to more than 1,500km².”

The company is currently undergoing a soil sampling program on the Mt Peake lithium project, with ground radar geophysics already complete. 

“Data interpretation is expected to be completed in two or three weeks,” says Zeng. “The Company is on the fast track to define the high-priority targets for drilling.”

Golden Deeps intersects high-grade copper and vanadium

Golden Deeps (ASX: GED) has intersected further high-grade copper-vanadium-lead mineralisation at the Nosib Block prospect, located in northern Namibia.

Notably, the intersections were close to the surface. In today’s announcement, the company reported up to 16% copper (Cu), 3.7% vanadium pentoxide (V²O⁵) and 15.9% lead (Pb). Average findings came to 1.3% Cu, 0.9% V²O⁵ and 3.8% Pb over 26m from surface.

With further drilling in progress, the company expects to extend this oxide zone and soon define a maiden mineral resource estimate for open-pit mine and processing planning.

CEO Jon Dugdale said:

“The completion of this program will allow metallurgical testing and resource estimation to be completed prior to initiating studies into production of high-value vanadium, copper and lead products to feed the ever increasing demand for these metals for the renewable energy battery industries globally.”

“In addition, deeper drilling has intersected significant thicknesses of strata-bound copper-silver sulphide mineralisation at depth that indicates we may be on top of a significant, new, copper-silver discovery that shows similar characteristics to major deposits in the Kalahari Copper Belt to the south.” 

Golden Rim hits up to 171.5g/t gold in sampling at Kada

Golden Rim Resources (ASX: GMR) soared 10% at the open today after positive sampling results at the Kada gold project in Guinea.

From the 1,095-hole drilling project, the Bereko prospect was a huge standout. The company found intense stockwork bedrock gold mineralisation, which contained rock chip results up to 171.5g/t gold.

Zooming out, infil auger drilling saw results of up to 2.7g/t gold along the 15km Kada gold corridor. This drilling also identified 5 priority targets for further exploration.  

New testing in a previously undrilled eastern zone found more anomalous gold results – up to 0.33g/t gold. The company believes this shows a potential parallel gold corridor that could extend over 6km. 

Moving forward, the company will begin a second reverse circulation drill campaign to test key target areas in March or April. 

Managing Director Craig Mackay commented:

“Infill drilling between highly anomalous gold values from our first auger program has increased our confidence in the continuity of the areas of strong bedrock gold anomalism.” 

“We have identified at least six priority target areas for exploration drilling that lie outside the area where we are preparing our maiden MRE."

Medallion Metals reports further Harbour View results

Medallion Metals (ASX: MM8) has jumped 4.56% today after reporting further results from the Harbour View deposit, located within the Kundip Mining Centre in the Ravensthorpe gold project. 

Standout results include:

• 7m @ 7.6 g/t gold (Au), 0.13 % copper (Cu), 1.6 g/t silver (Ag) from 204m

• 1m @ 23.2 g/t Au, 7.14 % Cu, 93.6 g/t Ag from 193m

The new results will be included in the company’s updated mineral resource estimate, which is planned for release in April. Currently, the existing MRE stands at 674,000 oz.

Assays are still pending for 43 holes, which represent about 11km of drilling. 

Commenting on the announcement, Managing Director Paul Bennett said:

“Another round of excellent results from Harbour View demonstrating high-grade and continuity along the key structures. The copper and silver grades are also encouraging with copper up to 7% in one of the holes. 

“The consistency of the results demonstrates the team has a very good handle on the mineralisation and we can be confident further drilling will continue to extend it.”

“Harbour View represents a high-grade mining opportunity that remains open both at depth and along strike.”

Odessa Minerals applies for alluvial diamond-bearing channel 

Odessa Minerals (ASX: ODE) is up 7.14% today after applying for two exploration licences over what the company believes is a major alluvial diamond-bearing channel that drains south from the Argyle Diamond Mine.

Argyle operated from 1985 until 2020. During that time, the mine produced over 850 million carats of diamonds, and was ranked as the world’s largest producer of pink, champagne, and cognac diamonds.

The company’s licence will follow a 40km channel along the Bow River. In previous exploration, the company recovered diamonds from 25 of the 27 bulk samples. 

The company believes that – while previous work identified numerous diamond occurrences – the project was not pursued at the time due to subdued diamond prices. However, growing diamond demand has changed that equation. 

“During 2021, increasing demand and reduced supply resulted in rough diamond prices increasing more than 20%,” says CEO Alistair Stephens. 

“We look forward to engaging with all Stakeholders to discuss our intentions, with the aim to advance this project to production of Ethically Sourced Diamonds.”