BkrDzn will you be taking a single stock approach or more of a VC approach (buy a few in the possibility a couple go to the moon) when looking at these types of stocks. (presumption is that you will still do your evaluation on them). I'm a new member hear but like the Srawman's asymmetry approach when taking into account a stock selection ie if I lose it will only be a little but these sub 2 c stocks have the potential to rise quickly on some news.

Apologies for the delayed reply. The 2c threshold is the fact that one can't buy or sell as tock with a SP of 2c or under in the platform so looking at a thread for people to discusses or state trades in them.

In general, weighting depends on my analysis and subsequent assessment for probability of the upside/downside scenarios playing out. However, for me, they are often more lottery ticket type plays like junior exploration companies (not a biotech guy) so I would tend to put a small weight in them with a view to average up on success. Its a single stock approach as I don't go and try and find 5 or 10 of them at a time. Often I will not own anything that would fit this description.

An example of a recent one I have which I can't do in Strawman is PLC as it trades at $0.01/sh and this is the price I paid for it last last week (~1% weighting). At ~$3.7m mcap with $2m cash and about to break ground on a 3km drill campaign at their Yalgoo gold asset. The assets has a non-jorc complain resource and drilling is very shallow so there is strong upside success as I don't think the resources were closed off in prior drilling. Risk is that being a reef style system is it can be thin and patchy thus not add up to much. The upcoming drill campaign should test depth given they are permitted to drill up to 250m deep (noting the period resource and drilling rarely exceed 60m depth).

In summation, I have paid an EV of $1.7m (sub $5m, ideally sub $3m EV is best for exploration punts imo) for a decent sized and fully funded drill campaign with the potential for high grade hits. A director has bought on market (just $8k though) mid-Feb leading into the upcoming drill campaign too. These types of plays have been rewarded this year noting OZM, KAL and CRS who were in similar positions to PLC prior to results (2 of which were at or sub 2c). The first two were supergene hits and I think fresh will be light so risk is there. BPM was an example last year where it went from $0.05/sh to $0.15/sh on such a supergene hit in air core and when it test the fresh rock with RC, came up light and if the punter moved fast, would get out at breakeven at worse (assuming in the stock before assays). The year before, STK was the same and one I traded getting a double out of what ended up being far from a discovery, just some strong supergene hits.

N.B. supergene refers to enriched grades in the oxide layer of the ground. For minerals like gold, grades are enriched through the weathering process of the ground as they are not leached away in this process. These supergene layers may give a false sense of the scale and richness of a mineralised system, thus the key is drilling into fresh rock to test the true extent and grade of the mineralising event.

Glad you started this thread @BkrDzn

Just for some context, the reason we prevent members from adding sub-2c stocks on Strawman is it helps ensure fairness in our trading system.

Because we rely on end-of-day pricing and only receive the total daily volume traded (not the breakdown of volume at each price level), there was a loophole that could be exploited.

Here’s what happened in the past:

• A member could buy (say) $20k worth of a stock at 0.1c and then sell it the next day at 0.2c, locking in a 100% gain overnight.
• While we do volume matching, the problem was that not all shares traded at 0.1c on day 1—most may have traded at 0.2c, but because 0.1c was the last recorded trade of the day, our system saw that as the price.
• The next day, the opposite scenario played out, making it appear as though a perfect round-trip trade was possible, when in reality, acquiring and selling that many shares at those prices was highly unlikely.

To stop this from happening, we introduced the "2c Rule"—which significantly reduces the feasibility of gaming the system this way.

It’s a simple fix that helps keep Strawman’s trading engine as fair and realistic as possible.

Anyway, hope that helps.

While I'm here, I also need to tip my hat to @BkrDzn for absolutely smashing it out of the park with his SM portfolio

You can check out his portfolio for yourselves, but a few thinsg to highlight:

1. Anyone can get lucky over a short time frame. 19.4%pa over more than 6 years takes a lot more than good fortune.
2. He's done this with a diversified portfolio. I'd put less weight on it if it were just one or two lucky hits that he just let ride -- but as you'll see, this is an actively managed portfolio with a wide variety of winners
3. I don't think we've ever overlapped in terms of shares held -- in fact, I usually shun resources stocks. Goes to show that there are many ways to win in the market, and he's clearly found an area where he enjoys an edge
4. A great long term average return is one thing, but the volatility of returns (or lack of it) is remarkable given the types of companies he's invested in. My average is ok, but i'm only barely back to my high water mark after a brutal and sustained drawdown!

Anyway, sorry for the effusive flattery mate, but it is very much deserved and we're lucky to have you on the team.

I appreciate the shout out. I will say that from mid 2021 to 2023, my straw portfolio had just two stocks as it was cashed up and lightly touched due to professional commitments and compliance. IRL I had a deeper drawdown in that stretch so my average would be more moderate.

What is accurate is that I have been a resources junkie.

Here here!

Nice work @BkrDzn

Long may you run

Had a little dig through open file/wamex and found a bit more detail on the old resource estimate. It came in at ~390kt at 3.74gpt which is ~47koz, sitting within 40m depth (as suspected from my prior observations) and appears to be done in the 80s or 90s hence why it is not JORC compliant.

The snip below comes from the Aurox combined annual report dated Dec 2008 which covered a tenement that covered the general project area.

Today this tenement sits between PLC (south) and SPR (North). Hard to know for certain but at least half of the Crescent and Olive Queen deposits sit on each side as the below aerial view suggests (PLC preso dated October 2024).

Throwing this in here to demonstrate some of the extra dd that can be done to cross check what the company chooses to report and try and find insights that may not make it to a bullet point on a presentation.

I do note that the company referred to as the source of the gold resource details, was an iron ore company. This ground is fill with BIFs. The results were not good. One can rule out iron ore as an opportunity (not that this is what I'm punting on lol).

You've got my attention with this one @BkrDzn - and I don't usually dabble in such early stage explorers, but this one does look super interesting. Firstly, the fact that they've pivoted to gold from lithium, yet the company name doesn't reflect that yet; they're still calling themselves "Premier1 Lithium" with the PLC ticker code. Anything with lithium in the company's name is likely to get overlooked by gold bugs, unless they're digging deeper as you clearly have @BkrDzn - and thanks for sharing some of your work here - much appreciated.

Secondly, their project locations:

Their Yalgoo Project is butting up against Spartan's Yalgoo gold project to the north - as you pointed out today - and has plenty of established gold miners around them.

Also, their Abbotts North project (see below) has Westgold (WGX) nearby and Meeka (MEK) a stone's throw to the east, plus Catalyst (CYL) not too far away to the north east.

Again - here's where those two sit in relation to each other:

Next, while this text that I'm about to quote from Commsec is old - like, when they were still lithium focused - the use of AI to assist with developing and prioritising drilling targets is interesting:

• Premier1 Lithium Limited (PLC, formerly Sensore Ltd) is an Australian company emphasizing expedited mining development. It relies on advanced data analytics, AI/ML, and scientific computing for exploration discoveries. Premier1 organizes its operations into three divisions for AI-target opportunities. Currently focused on lithium projects, with Abbotts North as the premier exploration site featuring lithium-bearing pegmatites.

Source: Commsec (today, under "About" PLC)

I do note that they're very small; currently their m/cap is around $3.7 million according to the ASX site and their share count (SOI) is just 368,060,582 shares. Accordingly, with a market cap of under $4m, you wouldn't expect their Board and Management to hold a huge amount of shares, and they don't:

When looking at those numbers people, keep in mind that their share price is hovering around 1 cent/share (closed today up +10% at $0.011 - i.e. 1.1 cps) so 2,500,100 shares (what their MD Jason Froud owns) is currently worth just $27,501.10 ($27.5 K) at today's $0.011/share close.

However, they do have some Subs:

The largest substantial holders are Deutsche Rohstoff AG, which Google tells me is a globally operating holding company that identifies, develops, and divests resource projects, with a focus on oil and gas opportunities in the United States, as well as base, specialty, and precious metals projects in North America, Europe, and Australia. They are based in Germany and their website is: https://rohstoff.de/en/company.

Not sure who Timothy Bird is, but there's a small chance it could actually be this guy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timbirdlaw/ who recently posted the following:

• Love this story. My grandfather and great-grandfather were the wheelwrights maintaining the mineshaft wheels at South Crofty mine many years ago and I’m sure they would be delighted to hear it is being given new life.
• ⚡ Big news for UK mining and green energy transition!
• We have advised Cornish Metals Inc. on its £56M fundraising, including a £28.6M strategic investment from the UK’s National Wealth Fund. This investment will help restart the historic South Crofty tin mine in Cornwall, securing a domestic supply of tin — a critical mineral for renewable energy, EVs, and tech.
• Why does this investment matter?
• - Supports the UK's transition to net zero
• - Creates high-quality jobs in Cornwall
• - Strengthens the UK’s critical minerals supply chain
• The Fieldfisher team was led by Edward Westhead, and included Anna Crosby, Oliver Perkins, Jamal Moursy and Catriona Grew.
• Congratulations to Cornish Metals Inc. and everyone involved. Exciting times ahead as the UK takes another step towards a sustainable future.
• Read more here: https://ow.ly/fgul50UQoZS
• #Mining hashtag
• #GreenEnergy hashtag
• #Investment hashtag
• #EnergyTransition hashtag
• #NetZero hashtag
• #Renewables hashtag
• #RenewableEnergy
• 

--- end of linkedin excerpt ---

Source: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/timbirdlaw_love-this-story-my-grandfather-and-great-grandfather-activity-7291050369256685568--34t/

That's a stretch I know, however I couldn't find any other Tim Birds with any link to mining in the 5 minutes I devoted to that pursuit this arvo.

Also, that Tim Bird used to work for and was an Associate at Deutsche Bank from Jan 2000 - Feb 2002 so there's that tenuous link also.

It could also be this Tim Bird: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tim-bird-66a457114/

Or this one: https://www.businessnews.com.au/Company/Prochoice-Global-Investments

https://www.businessnews.com.au/Person/Tim-Bird

That Tim Bird has been with Paramount Safety Products since September 2002. The company was founded by his late father (Rob Bird) in 1992, and Tim became their GM and took over the helm when his father passed away in 2010.

In June 2021, Paramount Safety Products was acquired by US company Protective Industrial Products, a global leader in hand protection and PPE for the industrial, construction, and retail markets. The Bird family have maintained a stake in the business following the deal, which included $160m in cash from the $227m deal.

Prochoice Global Investments is the family office of the Bird family behind Paramount Safety Products and operates across Australia, New Zealand, Latin America, the Pacific Islands, Asia, North America, Canada and Europe. Tim Bird is a Director of Prochoice Global Investments.

On 30th June 2024, Mr Timothy Bird (possibly the same Tim Bird) owned 1,405,137 shares in Pure Foods Tasmania (PFT.asx) (1.15% of the company)

Anyway, I digress.

Regarding the 3rd Sub of PLC, Sasak Minerals, I did find the following in an announcement way back in March 2013 (so 12 years ago) titled, "MRG IS PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE THE ACQUISITION OF SASAK RESOURCES AUSTRALIA PTY LTD":

Sasak is a privately owned Australian company, founded in 2010 by four highly experienced mineral explorers and mine developers, with the aim of discovering ore bodies under younger cover sequences. Most of the large, outcropping ore bodies have been discovered in Australia. Their in-house proprietary data mining technology drives their core business, which is the application of data mining techniques including predictive analytics using hundreds of GIS layers of information to generate and commercialise high potential/high value exploration targets. They have one of Australia's largest private geo-scientific databases comprising over 10 terabytes of data.

--- ends ---

So Sasak Minerals could just possibly be the investment vehicle of one or more of those 4 "highly experienced mineral explorers and mine developers" that sold their business, Sasak Resources, to MRG 12 years ago.

Anyway, like I said, it's got me interested, and I might take a small punt on them, but only with money I can afford to lose, because I do consider this type of "investing" more akin to gambling, as the vast majority of these minerals and metals explorers never make any money and most of them do go broke, unless they morph into something else, like this one has morphed from a lithium explorer into a gold explorer.

Importantly, despite the high risk nature of gambling on stocks like this one, it's clear from what @BkrDzn has shared here that you can certainly narrow the odds by studying the form guide and the track conditions.

Disc: Not held (yet).

Nice run down! I will note that Anja Ehser is VP Geology for Deutsche Rohstoff, the largest shareholder. And the head geo joined after wrapping up at AZS post acquisition.

Good to know @BkrDzn - I note that Premier1's (PLC's) neighbours @ their Abbotts North project (see map below), New Murchison Gold (NMG) were up +33.33% today on this announcement: VISIBLE GOLD IN DIAMOND CORE AT CROWN PRINCE.PDF

NMG is also a penny stock - trading around that 1 cent per share mark - even after rising +33% today from $0.009 to $0.012.

Below is MoM's take on today's news:

Link to timestamp in podcast: 0:37:20 The best visible gold announcements ever

Disc: Not holding, but added to watchlist.

I bought small positions ($5 K of each) in NMG (@ 1.5 cps) and PLC (@ 1.1 cps) today. Wish I'd bought NMG last week when they were more than 60% cheaper ($0.009 instead of $0.015) but realistically, I wouldn't have been too interested in them last week so that was never going to happen. They got my attention with this however:

And thanks again @BkrDzn for sharing your PLC research and modelling - I know PLC are more focussed on their Yalgoo prospect right now, in terms of drilling, with those upcoming drilling results providing possible positive share price catalysts for PLC in the near-term, however I do also like their Abbotts North project being just north of where NMG have just produced those diamond drill cores with heaps of visible gold shown in the above image.

When PLC do get around to drilling Abbotts North, there is a chance they might hit something like that also, and while NMG's SP has risen +33.33% on Monday, another +8.33% yesterday followed by a further +15.38% today, there is potential for them to go higher still when they get the assay results for those cores and the good news hopefully keeps on coming with further drilling. Of course, they could also find bugger-all gold from now on and their SP could retrace back below 1 cps, but I would imagine, on the basis of that visible gold in those cores, that they're well and truly "on the gold" and there is more good news coming. The question of course is how good that news is going to be, and how much of that is already priced in? The market is clearly pricing in a fair bit of further upside, so is it going to be that good, better or worse? We shall see.

I would have bought a position in both PLC and NMG yesterday (Tuesday) after thinking about it on Monday night and deciding both were worth a punt with a small amount of money, but I had my second kidney op yesterday (final and largest stone now lasered) and I left for the hospital before the market opened and I decided not to make any financial decisions after the procedures due to having had a general anaesthetic and still feeling fairly high from strong pain meds. I chose $5K of each because I'm only risking a total of $10K, and I didn't want to go any smaller because realistically I want one or both to double from here, at a minimum, which is certainly entirely possible - it happened with Meeka (MEK) and plenty of others within a few months - and so I needed a minimum amount as a starting point that should result in a decent payoff - i.e. provide a little holiday money. But, again, I don't want to go hard, because there's a lot of risk. So, hopefully I'm just in these two for a good time, not a long time.

So, the delay didn't really hurt me with PLC, but I ended up paying more today than I would have earlier in the week for NMG. Or to be more precise, I got less shares for the same amount of money today than I would have got yesterday or Monday.

I trimmed $10K off my GMD holding to pay for those, so swapped out a little profit on a growing gold producer (which I was already up +35% on in that portfolio) for some exposure to two gold explorers who appear to have some good ground. Almost apples for apples, same commodity exposure, just heaps more risk. But position sized to account for that risk.

Ten years ago I'd have been throwing substantially more than $5K at each of them, but I'm older, wiser, and more risk-averse now.

But I still have a pulse... So I'm rolling the dice with a couple of penny-stock gold explorers once again.

24th March 2025: Came across this today: WA copper-gold hunt adds punch to Critica mission [26th September 2024]

by James Pearson, published in SMH (Sydney Morning Herald newspaper and website) on September 26, 2024.

A strategic review by rare earths-focused Critica and Premier1 Lithium at their Yalgoo joint venture (JV) project in Western Australia’s Murchison region has prompted a shift from lithium exploration to gold and copper.

While Critica has maintained a strong focus on its emerging Jupiter rare earths deposit, also in WA’s Mid West, the change in thinking at Yalgoo has also today captured the market’s attention. The news prompted a small spike in Critica’s share price, while Premier1’s stock jumped 80 per cent during intraday trading this morning on the biggest volumes since it listed in early 2022.

Critica and Premier1 Lithium have shifted the focus at their Yalgoo project JV from lithium to copper and gold exploration.

Although the JV’s initial exploration efforts were focused on lithium at Yalgoo, it has since identified extensive gold and copper prospects and has now kicked open the door to exploring for the two commodities in an area renowned for big discoveries of the respective metals.

The Yalgoo project spans 220 square kilometres in the northern Yalgoo-Singleton Greenstone Belt, a region known for major discoveries such as 29Metals’ Golden Grove and Red5’s Deflector mines.

Historical exploration of the Wadgingarra area in the northern part of JV ground was conducted mainly by Mount Kersey Mining from 1985 to 1989 and revealed gold mineralisation in subvertical quartz veins. An estimate from that work reported 390,000 tonnes at 3.7 grams per tonne gold down to a depth of 40m and extending into neighbouring ground held by Spartan Resources.

Key targets included Crescent, Olive Queen and Cumberland. At the time, the area was tested with a 73-hole drilling program and additional potential was identified at three other additional targets. Notably, exploration data from the 1900s has also revealed untested gold mineralisation in multiple zones within the Yalgoo tenement, offering additional immediate opportunities.

The unearthed historic drill results highlighted high-grade gold intercepts, including one of 5m at 5.1g/t from 1m, another of 10m at 6.4 g/t from 8m and 2m running at 20.8g/t from 10m. Further historic surface rock chip sampling thrown up from desktop studies revealed multiple high-grade assays including 9.4g/t and 7.4g/t gold, in addition to 6.6 per cent copper.

A more recent electromagnetic (EM) survey in 2020 by Critica discovered four high-priority volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) ore drill targets, 10km north and along strike from the Golden Grove zinc-copper-gold mine that contains 750,000 tonnes of copper, 1 million ounces of gold and 3 million tonnes of zinc.

The promising finds, which have been overlooked since the 1990s, have now presented the JV with multiple high-potential drill targets. Moving forward, the JV plans to initiate a fieldwork program to test and confirm the targets, with an eye to establishing a broader mineral portfolio than just the lithium prospects.

The change in direction follows a review of initial fieldwork undertaken by Premier1 in May, which was focused on lithium exploration and formed part of the expenditure needed to honour its farm-in agreement commitments with Critica that was first structured in March last year.

Under the deal, Premier1 – which initially first entered into the agreement for the project’s sole lithium potential – has the right to earn 70 per cent of all mineral rights at Yalgoo, excluding the rare earths, by spending up to $4.5 million in two stages. The requirements include spending $1.5 million for a 51 per cent interest within two years and a further $3 million for the additional 19 per cent.

Critica, however, still retains an option to claw back 10 per cent of the project, valid until March next year, and will keep all rights to its high-grade Vulcan rare earths target, where surface samples previously returned up to 12.5 per cent total rare earth oxides (TREO).

With a renewed focus on gold and copper, spurred on by multiple incidents of historic finds, Critica and Premier1 Lithium have high hopes of cashing in on two metals – both of which are enjoying booming prices.

It gives Critica something genuine to keep an eye on as it builds on its burgeoning mission at Jupiter.

--- ends ---

Disclosure: I hold PLC (Premier1) shares IRL, but not Critica (CRI) shares. To be clear, I'm not interested in their REO (rare earths) or Lithium exploration activities, but I am interested in the gold that they may well find in their tenements on the basis of their location in close proximity to other proven decent gold discoveries. These companies, if they do find enough gold, are unlikely to attempt to progress through to being gold producers, however they might get taken out (acquired) by a company like Ramelius Resources (RMS) who last week announced an agreed plan to acquire ("merge with") Spartan (SPR) who own gold just to the north of the Yalgoo project discussed in that article. Spartan's project is also called their Yalgoo Gold Project, as shown below (top right of the map) because Yalgoo is the area name. I do hold RMS and SPR, both here and IRL. I'm confident that we'll only see M&A activity increase if the gold price keeps rising and making new all time highs. Even if it goes sideways for a while, these are very good levels for gold miners to make excellent profits and there's plenty of incentive for cashed-up gold miners to buy more ground that they know contains more gold.

FYI, results were okay. A few big hits but a few dusters. Nature of a reef style system.

I punched out my entire holding today so made okay money on a punt.

Will come back to it when they release details on a follow up drill program.

Yes @BkrDzn I had a sell order in @ 1.5 cps (overnight, lodged last week) and that got taken out at the open at 1.7 cps (where PLC opened) which was a nice surprise. So I'm no longer holding PLC either. Happy that order got filled at the open seeing as they quickly dropped below that price and then closed right back down at 1.3 cps, i.e. same as yesterday.

I'd like that to happen with my NMG shares now. I also have a sell order in for those, as I have noted that these drilling results usually get announced pre-open and can result in a sharp spike in the SP on the open, and I'll take it if I get it. It was just play money anyway, so always good when these little punts work out well. Thanks for putting me on to PLC Joshua. Much appreciated.

Gents

enjoyed the discussion on this and did follow along for a nice return (hello anniversary dinner with the wife).

would either of you be able to point me in a direction to pick up more knowledge around reading drilling results etc. I’ve generally invested in later stage miners / producers or close to production so this end of the cycle is newer to me.

Enjoy the dinner!

I think the best place to start is to learn all the term key terms related to drilling, types of drilling etc... Terms like azimuth, dip, true width/thickness, strike, plunge, RC, AC and such. I have no specific resource that covers it all and it is something I have learned over time reading releases, asking questions (dumb ones a plenty) and googling.

Next you want to learn basics about different mineral systems and mineralisation types so you have an idea of what to expect or can be possible from exploration. Particularly if companies report visuals ahead of assays.

The trickier part is trying to know what is likely to be economic mineralisation/results as there is no hard and fast rule or what is good or bad.

WCN is a good example of how knowing the key terms in order to determine the risk of trading a "discovery". The key term to know is Azimuth which is the direction a hole is drilling and is a compass measurement. It is measured between 0-359 degrees so an azimuth of 180 would be drilled south. In WCN, they have a breccia vein style copper system which can be thin or at times, have thicker pipe like structures which may not have a lot of strike (length). Old drilling identified that the ore body dips southeast to north newest. Historical drilling was on an azimuth of 150. WCN's current drilling program was the same except for one hole (the claimed "discovery hole) which was drilled at 284 (the opposite direction). This is referred to as drilling down the guts of the ore zone. Not always considered dodgy but given what is known to the company based on history, it likely was done deliberately so to embellish an intercept, making it look longer and thicker than it really is. The hole did shows some nice higher grade zones that have merit/interest so its not 100% dodgy.

I think the takeaway is that know these basics can help you trade/invest better in earlier stage companies and assess opportunities quicker when announcements drop. It can also help frame the risk of trading results as even though WCN approach is sus, money can still be made trading things like that. This decision becomes yes/no to trade, then what size based on the risk (using small size most of the time).

The PLC example is a good one as it highlights how if you can identify an opportunity earlier enough, once can not only reduce the risk of losing money, but you can make money on subpar results. However, position sizing remains super important.

Much appreciated @BkrDzn!

One of my "punter" stocks - i.e. speculative gold explorer / developer companies - had a good drilling results report today, but only rose one tenth of a cent - from 1.6 cps to 1.7 cps - but that was still a +6.25% SP rise today because their share price is so low. I'm guessing people expected these sort of grades based on the visible gold in their drill cores that they shared with us last month. Have a look at these grades:

Source: Grade Control Drilling Results.PDF [28th May 2025]

Also, here's a couple of other images from that announcement:

They're in a good area of WA's central goldfields, around Meekatharra, and there are plenty of gold mills around them, with Meeka Metals' Andy Well mill just up the road, and Westgold (WGX) owning gold projects and mills close by. In fact, regarding WGX, NMG released the following on Monday: Response-to-Media-Speculation.PDF [26th May 2025].

They said:

New Murchison Gold limited (ASX: NMG) (NMG or the Company) refers to recent media speculation suggesting Westgold Resources Limited (WGX or Westgold) has made two separate takeover approaches to entities in the Murchison region. The article mentions NMG as one of the parties.

The Company confirms that from time to time over the past few years there have been discussions with Westgold on various commercial and broader business transactions. In 2024 the Company executed a Strategic Alliance and an Ore Purchase Arrangement with Westgold in relation to the Company’s Crown Prince gold project.

The Company meets frequently with Westgold in relation to operational matters in line with its existing Ore Purchase Agreement and pre-development activities for the Crown Prince gold project. The Company confirms it has not received any takeover offer from Westgold as speculated in the media and have not reached any other material agreement at this time. Should any material agreement be reached with Westgold at any time the Company will make an appropriate announcement to the market in accordance with its disclosure obligations.  

--- end of excerpt ---

NMG would make sense as a bolt on acquisition for WGX, however I'm not factoring that in, I'm just speculating that NMG are likely to find more gold based on their results thus far. If they get taken over in the meantime, bonus!

Leaving aside the gold producers I hold, in terms of explorers and project developers who do NOT yet produce any gold, I hold 5: Meeka (MEK), NMG, Rox Resources (RXL), Horizon Minerals (HRZ) and Gorilla Gold (GG8). I recently sold out of Medallion Metals (MM8) to buy more Gorilla Gold (GG8). Of those 5 only NMG are trading below 2 cps, with HRZ trading around 5 cps and the other three trading between 14 cps (MEK) and 50 cps (GG8). All are small companies and very speculative at this stage, so my weightings are appropriately small.

I am currently holding those speccy stocks in a separate portfolio to ensure that I keep track of how much money I am putting at risk through those punts.

Here on SM, I'm only holding MEK out of those 5.

Grade control drilling usually doesn't make the SP pop (also goldies where soft on the day) even if the grade outperforms the geo model. But if it does outperform, it does shore up confidence in the DFS and production scenario.

P.s. I'll soon have a bit of work out on one of the 4 dev plays you mention not named MEK.

Looking forward to it @BkrDzn. Hopefully it's HRZ because I'd like to know more about their projects and tenements. But I'd take anything you have on Gorilla or Rox !

I have also been looking at Astral (AAR) but only being at Scoping Study level is a worry for me, just too early stage, which is one of the reasons why I moved out of MM8, same deal, plus MM8 would need to truck their ore quite a way (173 km) to Forrestania to get it processed, after upgrading the Forrestania infrastructure, so I'm thinking there are other devs that might have more upside in the near term than MM8.

In Horizon's case, I like that they have 1,300 square km of tenements and a mill. And I like where some of their tenements are located. Rox is likely to be an acquisition target for RMS in my opninion. And Gorilla Gold are just drilling like there's no tomorrow and it's paying off for them; they're finding gold, and I reckon they're going to sell projects as they prove them up rather than take them through to production themselves; They do have plenty of projects, but they seem to be focusing mostly on one of them at a time, which is good. I get the impression that GG8 are all about finding gold, not mining it, but I could be proved wrong about that given time.

Of course, AAR's PFS is due this quarter, so within the next 5 weeks, could be any day now, and they could certainly pop on that, but the market could also be underwhelmed and sell them down, so for now they're on a watchlist of mine.

Let's see how disappointed you may or may not be then haha.

On AAR, they have pre-flagged key aspects of the PFS. Idk how it can "disappoint" as the numbers will be a big upgrade and there is no need to raise any time soon.

On MM8, scoping done but into feas and FID this year so its an accelerated timeline which makes sense as its a refurb. Trucking 173km not a big deal given the grade of the ore. I think this has captured more of the value in the mcap compared to other developers but good R&R in its own right still.

ROX is tricker for M&A as its refrac and needs a POX, something that is not in RMS's wheelhouse as far as I know. This might be one where the team have to build it and exist in its own right.

Thanks for that @BkrDzn - I thought Mt Magnet had POX, but you're right, Google says it doesn't, although Google told me that Penny - the gold mine next to Rox's Youanmi GP that RMS is trucking ore to Mt Magnet from - is sulphide ore, similar to Youanmi - when I was looking at them one or two weeks ago, but I clearly need to learn more about the geology side of it. Refractory is not the same as sulphide ore Google tells me, although they are related.

That is right, not that I can explain it well myself. Gold is often associated with sulphides but the prescience of sulphides does not always mean refractory. It comes down to whether gold is embedded in the sulphide or not and if it is, it is usually in very small particles. If embedded, its needs processing with fine to ultrafine grinding and POX to oxidise the fresh ore so it can go through a CIL.

Also not all refractory ore is the same ether as some can have issues with arsenic which can incur material payability penalties. Also in refractory deposits, the oxide and trans layers (ideally supergene enriched) can be free milling whilst its the fresh rock that can be problematic and requiring a more intensive processing flowsheet, something you can look depending on far back you look into HRZ.

This may help with a very general sense as deposits have lots of nuance as you would know.

I slept on that and did a bit more research on both Rox (RXL) and Astral (AAR) this morning @BkrDzn and have this morning sold out of RXL and put that money into AAR.

Thanks for your research and thoughts that you've shared here on Astral a few days ago and yesterday. Very helpful!

I also found this site useful: https://discoveryalert.com.au/news/astral-resources-gold-recoveries-2025-feysville/#

And regarding Mandilla, AAR's own website was useful too: https://astralresources.com.au/mandilla-project/#

The reference to the old Wattle Dam gold mine also being hosted within the Spargoville Shear Corridor brought back some mixed memories, as I held Ramelius when they were first spun out of Beach Petroleum (BPT, now known as Beach Energy) in around 2003 I think it was. I was holding Beach shares back then, so received RMS shares as part of the demerger (Beach spun all of their gold assets out into Ramelius - RMS) and I bought more RMS on market in 2005/2006 because of the high gold grades they were reporting at Wattle Dam.

Wattle Dam was one of Australia's highest grade gold mines for a few years (over 10 grams/tonne average grade), but it had a relatively short mine life, only 5 or 6 years and produced just under 270 koz Au over that period, so good while it lasted but the RMS share price crashed when the gold ran out at Wattle Dam, and it's a lesson that the company has clearly benefited from, as they certainly do line up future growth projects ahead of time these days rather than wait until they need to buy or find more gold in the ground.

But back to Astral. The 3rd April 2025 Mandilla MRE update to 42Mt at 1.1 g/t Au for 1.42Moz of contained gold suggests they have plenty of gold there at average grades. And I note that you've said that their global resource base post MXR acquisition is now 50mt at 1.1gpt for 1.76moz, including Spargoville which abuts Mandilla.

1.1g/t was considered low grade a few years ago, but companies are making plenty of cash processing ore with less than half a gram of gold per tonne at current gold prices, so 1.1 g/t Au is fine as long as it's easy and cheap enough to extract from the ore and the ore is close to surface. 98%+ recoveries from testing at Feysville reported a week ago are encouraging, and in that announcement they said, "Maiden metallurgical testing at key Feysville deposits demonstrates exceptionally high recoveries using the same low-cost processing route proposed for Mandilla."

You said in your #Bull Case straw @BkrDzn that Mandilla's ore body characteristics leads to a modest strip of ~7x LOM, coarse grind (P80 150um) and clean met with recoveries close to 96%. Sounds good so far.

I can also see what you mean about the upside in the PFS when the SS (Scoping Study) was based on a gold price of A$2,750, and the gold price is currently over A$5,000/ounce ($5,100/ounce today). At a gold price of A$2,750 the SS, based on a standalone project comprising three open pit mines feeding a 2.5Mtpa processing facility, has them producing 80 to 100koz per year giving Mandilla a NPV (8% discount rate) of $442 million. AAR's current m/cap today is $200 million less than that, at around $240 million. Plenty of upside there if Mandilla gets built and performs to expectations. But with further CRs along the way of course.

That SS also didn't include any value from Astral's nearby 100%-owned Feysville Project, which currently hosts a 196koz MRE.

I had a look through their announcements and presentations and then asked Google about the ore types at Mandilla and Google had this to say:

Astral's Mandilla gold project includes both oxide and sulphide ore. The project also includes refractory ore, which is a specific type of sulphide ore that is challenging to process using conventional cyanide leaching methods. 

Oxide Ore: The Mandilla project includes oxide and transitional deposits at Rogan Josh and Think Big, which total 1.6Mt at 1.3g/t for 68.2koz of contained gold. 

Sulphide Ore: The Resources Review report that the RC program results were broadly consistent with logged quartz/sulphide zones within the current resource model. 

Refractory Ore: The Mandilla project includes refractory ore. Mining.com.au stated that results from the first hole drilled intersected multiple zones of quartz, sulphides, and 10 instances of visible gold, demonstrating potential for ongoing growth at Theia, which is a part of the Mandilla project. 

--- ends ---

So my two questions @BkrDzn are:

Do you think Astral need a POX plant?, coz it doesn't sound like they are planning to use one, and:

Do you think Astral are likely to build their own standalone plant at Mandilla or get taken out by an existing producer? I know they have to proceed on the basis that they are going to build a mill themselves, but is someone like Westgold likely to take them out before they get that far, in your opinion?

Appreciate you sharing your thoughts on Astral @BkrDzn - I've bought a small position this morning, and may buy a little more if I can increase my confidence in the investment thesis. They certainly sound like a better option than RXL, which is why I swapped that cash out of RXL and into AAR.

Mandilla isn't refrac so not sure what those sources are on about. Mandilla is a bog standard CIL operation.

I used Gemini (google) and it came back saying its not. Mandilla does have quartz and sulphides near the contact in the sediments but its an association. In the MRE update that covers the MXR ounces, it has the word refrac comes up once in the context saying that testing to date show no signs of refrac so its gold associated with sulphides. As such, no pox or similar is need. If it was it would have a mention in the SS about it being scoped or something to consider if there was refrac ore. I have never heard anyone mutter even a conspiracy on refrac risk.

Astral's team is ex-EGA and based on my chats are happily prepared to build a mine but Marc does talk on M&A as an exit. I think this is a project in this environment that has some relatively higher chance of a bid. Going by recent news, several goldies are on the M&A hunt with a mix of those looking for new feed and those looking for new projects to spend money on (i.e. RRL). IF this were to get a bid, the best deal would likely come from Gold Fields as their reporting and scuttlebutt suggests they are getting shorter on feed at the St Ives plant. Mandilla to St Ives would be a short haul on a private road. The best deal can come from them as its plug n play so with no capex beyond starting the open it, they can pay overs to most others whose bids would be limited given they would foot the full capex to build. My gut feel is as is, $500m+ is needed to deal and that still leaves the field of suiters fairly open.

I don't invest on a thesis around M&A, just on the ability of the team to execute on a good project when the cycle is in their favour.

Thanks heaps for that @BkrDzn . Very helpful!

When you see GF getting stuck into these small deposits like Swiftsure and with some very high strips, something more common in recent years from, you can see the logic in a bid. AAR's lower grade ore would be much more profitable to put through the mill.

From GF's 2024 Annual MRE Report

I note that GF have not been afraid to increase their footprint or exposure in Australia with acquiring the other half of Gruyere through the acquisition of GOR, which is interesting. Do you have any feel for whether AngloGold Ashanti would be happy to increase their own Australian exposure? I know Mark Bristow at Barrick isn't a fan of buying Australian gold assets - he seems to think we do things fairly well down here in terms of gold mining, especially underground gold mining, and our better assets and companies are priced accordingly compared to ex-Australia gold assets and companies, and he was saying in recent years that he sees more value in the northern hemisphere; He named Canada as a place where assets were selling at more reasonable prices, and closer to Barrick's US HQ.

Newmont were also reducing Australian exposure a few years back, including selling their half of KCGM, but unlike Barrick (who sold the other half of KCGM and fully exited this country), Newmont were happy to keep some tier one assets like Boddington and more recently to buy Newcrest to get Cadia. Not sure if Newmont wanted much else from the Newcrest stable other than Cadia; they've already offloaded Telfer and Havieron to Greatland, but Telfer had been Newcrest's problem child for most of the past decade.

I did get the impression around 3 or 4 years ago that these large multinational goldies were seeing more value ex-Australia and reducing their Australian exposure, but GF, AGA and Newmont have retained some key assets here, and lately they seem to be more inclined to have a look at things here with a view to buying something if it looks compelling enough to them. Must be the elevated gold price and the fact that we are such a large country with so much gold.

I agree that it's not a good idea to buy or hold shares in companies based on M&A potential, except where the thesis stacks up in the absence of any M&A - and M&A is just a bonus if it happens; That said, if GF was to pick up AAR that would just be a logical bolt-on to feed St Ives, so nothing major for them.

I reckon Westgold are after another acquisition at the moment, could be NMG, could be someone else. It's good when we find a company that has plenty of upside potential without any M&A but they could also be a takeover target as an added bonus. "At a reasonable price" - is the bit that's getting harder - as a lot of these companies have had a bit of a run recently.