Materials

Juniors on Radar: 5 ASX Explorers to Watch Today

Wed 23 Mar 22, 11:08am (AEDT)
news_junior_3_wed

Key Points

  • Five juniors with interesting announcements today
  • +20% Panther Metals - Assay results
  • +19% Carnarvon Energy - Material oil discovery
  • +12% Cobalt Blue - Underground mine development
  • +12% MetalsTech - Mapping and rockchip sampling program results
  • +7% Minerals 260 - Maiden drilling program

Minerals 260 kicks off maiden drilling program

Minerals 260 (ASX: MI6) has commenced its first-ever drilling program at the Moora Project and adjacent Koojan JV. The company's shares are up 7% in early-trade.

The two projects are a spin-off of Liontown’s (ASX: LTR) non-lithium assets, focused on base metals including gold, platinum, palladium, nickel and copper. 

The company said that the drilling is part of an initial $6.7m, 6-month exploration program that commenced last November. 

Shares in the Koojan JV partner, Lachlan Star (ASX: LSA) rallied 15.8% as the market opened.

Carnarvon confirms a “material oil discovery”

Carnarvon Energy (ASX: CVN) shares are up 19% after confirming a significant oil discovery in WA.

The company said that light oil was recovered from “excellent reservoirs”, confirmed across a net oil pay zone of 46m. 

“This discovery is material because Pavo lies only 46 kilometres from the proposed Dorado production facilities and is expected to be an ideal resource to tie back to Dorado,” said CEO Adrian Cook. 

Pavo field location
Pavo field location map, Bedout Sub-Basin, offshore Western Australia (Source: Carnarvon Energy)

“Subject to the joint venture making a final investment decision (FID) this year, the Dorado production infrastructure is planned to be in-place by the end of 2025 and will have the capacity to tie-in other fields like Pavo with no material increase in operational costs.”

The Dorado Project is currently in the FEED (Front End Engineering and Design) phase, facilities are being designed for production of 75,000 to 100,000 barrels per day. 

Cobalt Blue commences underground development

Cobalt Blue (ASX: COB) kicked off blast and excavation activities at the Broken Hill Cobalt Project. The company's shares are up 12% to 52-week highs of 88 cents in early-trade.

Cobalt Blue Blast
Initial blast at the Pyrite Hill box cut (Source: Cobalt Blue)

3,500 to 4,000 tonnes of ore will be mined to support 20 weeks of operation of the company’s demonstration plant. These activities will provide engineering data for the project’s feasibility study, expected later this year. 

“These large-scale Demonstration Plant cobalt samples are a game changer for COB, providing operating proof for project equity/debt funders and simultaneously providing high quality production scale samples for commercial partners,” said Cobalt Blue CEO, Joe Kaderavek. 

The company expects to make a final investment decision for the Broken Hill Project late this year. 

MetalsTech confirms high grade hold targets 

A regional mapping and rockchip sampling program has confirmed mineralisation at historic drill holes and new drill targets at the Sturec Gold Mine in Slovakia.

“Sturec boasts incredible prospectivity outside of the existing resource area and our recent exploration efforts combined with historic drilling results confirm that the … prospects are drill ready high grade targets,” Director Gino D’Anna said in a statement. 

“We are applying for the necessary permits to expand our drilling efforts to include these exciting regional targets, which could be a source of significant growth to our gold and silver resource base.” 

Near-term catalysts for MetalsTech (ASX: MTC) include a “assays for a significant batch of drill results” and a scoping study for Sturec - expected in April. 

Panther Metals assays returns

Initial assay results from drilling at the Coglia Project has returned high nickel and cobalt grades for Panther Metals (ASX: PNT).

The company said that intercepts of 1m at 3.77% nickel and 1m at 3,160 parts per million cobalt are the highest grades receive to date.

Managing Director Daniel Tuffin said he was "not surprised with these results" due to the amount of meticulous work and planning carried out prior to drilling.

"However, I remain exceedingly pleased with these increased peaks in nickel and cobalt grades and the continued consistency in the thickness of the mineralised zone in which they reside."

The latest results cover 26 drill holes and assays from a further 33 holes are still pending.

Once the Coglia drill program is complete, Panther Metals will commence a Mineral Resource estimate.

Panther chip tray
Chip tray from Coglia drilling (Source: Panther Metals)

 

Written By

Kerry Sun

Content Strategist

Kerry holds a Bachelor of Commerce from Monash University. He is an avid swing trader, focused on technical set ups and breakouts. Outside of writing and trading, Kerry is a big UFC fan, loves poker and training Muay Thai. Connect via LinkedIn or email.

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