ASX Small cap explorers are now officially back in vogue.
For evidence of this, look no further than the large, sudden and high volume share price gains of Variscan Mines (ASX:VAR), Antipa Minerals (ASX:AZY), Alchemy Resources (ASX:ALY), St George Mining (ASX:SGQ), Ventnor Resources (ASX:VRX), and BBX Minerals (ASX:BBX).
To be more specific, genuinely micro-cap explorers, with current or imminent drilling campaigns for precious and base metals, are back in vogue…
The aforementioned stocks are, or were, sub-$5 million market cap, and involved in exploration campaigns for various combinations of gold, copper, zinc and nickel.
Well…
What if a sub-$5 million market cap stock had just commenced one gold drilling campaign, and will be drilling a separate project next month for gold-copper, where gold nuggets have been found and will be drilling yet another project in September for nickel-copper-zinc…
We think that is something the market would most definitely be interested in!
Such a stock exists… but it has remained under the radar and is still trading close to base camp.
White Cliff Minerals (ASX:WCN)… drilling for gold as we speak.
A few days ago, on July 8th, WCN commenced a 5000m air blast drilling campaign at its Red Flag project near Laverton, W.A.
The targets aren’t small, with two distinct zones of surface gold anomalism covering ½ a kilometre and 2 kilometres respectively.
The 2km and ½ km gold trends are shown in red below; the blue diamonds are planned and current drill holes, giving very comprehensive coverage:
Map 1: White Cliff Minerals Projects in Australia
The buzz comes from the fact that these targets are located immediately north of the 3 million ounce Granny Smith Gold Mine, and the goliath 8 million ounce Wallaby Gold Mine.
That’s exciting in terms of immediate discovery potential.
And in the event of major discovery, WCN could swiftly and cheaply monetise its deposit, via the ore processing infrastructure at these existing mines.
The prospects at Red Flag are also related to the regional fault system responsible for the 7 million ounce Sunrise Dam gold.
Investors and speculators will not be waiting long for results… the program should be complete around July 22nd, with assay results revealed early next month.
Add to all this, the large gold nuggets found in May at WCN’s nearby Mt Remarkable gold project…
Drilling is also in the pipeline later on for Mt Remarkable… drilling directly into gold nuggets could spin out some handy assays!
More Drilling… Near a 93 Million Ounce Gold Deposit
This drilling is scheduled for mid to late August, 600m from its existing AuCu deposit in Kyrgyzstan.
Not just anywhere in Kyrgyzstan, but at its 89% owned Chanach Project in the epicentre of the famed Tien Shan Gold Belt, host to some of the largest gold mines on the planet…
These include Kumtor at 19 million ounces, Kalmakyr with 93 million ounces and Murntau across the border in Uzbekistan, which boasts a whopping 110 million ounces:
Map 2 White Cliff Minerals Project in Kyrgyzstan
There is a maxim in the gold sector, if you are looking for a big gold find, you need to be drilling in “elephant country” – code name for a region with massive gold discoveries.
WCN’s AuCu deposit at the Chanach Project – has that in spades.
AuCu has already proven a high grade, near surface resource of 156,000 ounces at 4.2g/t gold… this could easily be increased to a couple of million ounces via upcoming drilling.
The initial aim here is to delineate a 500,000 ounce to 1 million ounce open pit, then perhaps seek listing in the UK, Hong Kong or Singapore next year to tap demand for gold assets from Asian investors.
Definition of a 1 million ounce resource, and listing in the UK, could bring WCN’s market cap closer to the A$55 million of Chaarat Gold Holdings (LON:CGH), which controls a 4 million ounce deposit just to the north of WCN, as shown in the above map.
Previous intersections include:
- 19 metres at 6 g/t gold from 71 metres
- 6 metres at 13.1 g/t gold from 50 metres
- 4 metres at 23.8 g/t gold from 85 metres
- 2 metres at 22 g/t gold from 102 metres
Assays from recent trenching are pending and due late this month… a tantalising pre-cursor to drilling in August:
Figure 2 Location of new mineralised zones, 600 metres east of Aucu gold deposit
Further trenching and sampling underway as tracks progress, as is a ground magnetic survey to refine drill targeting.
Followed by Drilling for Nickel-Copper-Zinc…
WCN will be conducting a third, successive, major drilling program… this time targeting nickel-copper, and/or copper-zinc.
WCN controls 100% of prime nickel tenements in W.A. with a striking geological similarity to the setting which hosts Sirius’ Nova-Bollinger nickel-copper-cobalt deposits…
This ground has the added advantage of proximity to nickel operations – so again any discovery could be quickly monetised due to existing mining infrastructure.
Map 3 Nickel Province Western Australia
WCN’s Merolia Nickel Project has just been granted $150,000 from the WA government to co-fund drilling testing of three compelling electromagnetic conductors on basal contacts.
Another similarity to Sirius is that these conductors have been identified by Newexco – the same team that played an integral role in the Nova-Bollinger discoveries…
Newexco have measured conductivities of 500 -1100 Siemens, and the tops of the conductors occur at depths of 60m to 170m below surface.
They range from 500 metres long to 2000 metres long and extend to depths of 1500 metres… these are BIG, JUICY targets.
In recent days, the $15 million capped St George Mining has identified significant copper and zinc mineralisation in the same sequence, just to the south of WCN.
The SGQ share price has been a 3 bagger since February... so think for a second where WCN could go?
Let’s recap...on WCN:
Three high impact drilling campaigns in succession, and an existing high grade gold deposit, all from one $4 million cap explorer… and conceivably could move way past that $15 million cap of SGQ with drilling success.
Current share price of White Cliff Minerals? 7/10th of one cent.
Share price target White Cliff Minerals? Potentially priceless.
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