Shares in base metals and iron ore focused Anglesey Mining plc (LON:AYM) shot up Friday as it gave a favourable assessment on the outlook for the business and metals prices.
Anglesey is the owner of the Parys Mountain underground zinc-copper-lead-silver-gold deposit in Wales, where it is updating earlier scoping and economic studies.
The site already has a resource of 2.1 million tonnes at 6.9% combined base metals in the higher confidence indicated category and 4.1 million tonnes at 5% in inferred.
The company also holds a 15% stake in Canada-listed Labrador Iron Mines which has direct shipping iron (DSO) ore deposits in Labrador and Quebec, while a more recent addition has been a direct 6% interest in the Grangesberg iron ore project in Sweden and a right of first refusal over a further 51%.
Zinc has been one of the strongest performing metals in 2016, rising 50% from US$0.70 per pound at the end of 2015 to US$1.15 per pound recently, while the demand fundamentals have been improving over the last five years.
Precious metals prices have been supported by macro-economic uncertainty, while lead has also performed well this year rising from US$0.75 per pound at the end of 2015 to US$0.95 per pound in the third quarter.
Meanwhile, a new customer helped boost sales during the September quarter from Strategic Minerals plc's (LON:SML) Cobre iron tailings operation in New Mexico.
Shipments to the new client began in mid-August and have carried through into the December quarter, the AIM firm said.
Sales in the three months came in at US$462,000 on the back of 7,686 tonnes produced. That compares to sales of US$250,000 in the same three months of 2015 on the back of 3,684 tonnes generated.
Bezant Resources plc (LON:BZT) has thrown its weight fully behind its platinum and gold assets in Colombia and written off its interest in the Mankayan project in the Philippines.
Bezant appointed local firm Exumax as its contractor in Colombia in September.
In November, Ed Nealon, chairman, said all machinery, earth-moving equipment, processing plant and work crews was on site and work on the first exploration test pits had commenced at licence FKJ-083 in the Choco region.
Nealon, a South African platinum mining veteran, is optimistic over the potential.
Sula Iron & Gold (LON:SULA) suspects its Ferensola gold deposit in Sierra Leone could be significantly bigger than first thought following the latest discovery on the property.
Its geologists have found weathered gold-bearing iron oxide quartz after cutting a road across an area called the Eastern Target.
The material was simply crushed and panned to liberate the precious metal.
Importantly, the samples were recovered from a part of Ferensola which, thus far, hadn’t yielded traces of gold.
W Resources PLC (LON:WRES) this week announced that the first hole drilled at the São Martinho gold project, in Portugal, has confirmed gold mineralisation.
So far a total of nine holes have been drilled, and the assays are back for the first hole (SMD-04).
SMD-04 cut gold mineralisation in six levels, encountering grades of up to 7.6 grams per tonne.
The hole was designed to confirm an upper mineralised section seen in historic drilling, in the early 1990s, as well as testing deeper parts of the gold system. As such the result both confirms the historic zone, and identifies a new high grade deeper that could potentially increase the project’s resource base through further drilling.
Meanwhile, Savannah Resources Plc (LON:SAV) has unearthed more high grade copper from drilling in Oman and has started a new programme to add additional resources to the mine plan.
Grades from Mahab 4 and Maquail South in Block 5 continued the good mineralisation found earlier, said David Archer, chief executive,
At Mahab, the final hole in the programme recorded 14.25m at 3.86% copper adding to a previous best indication of over 47m at 6%.
Savannah has also started a four hole programme at Aarja/Dog's Bone prospect in Block 4.
Archer said the consistent and broad high grades of copper at Mahab 4 and Maqail South were encouraging.
Metal Tiger plc (LON:MTR) updated on its Botswana joint venture, saying a scoping study for a potential open pit at the T3 target will be completed and announced this month (November). That is one month ahead of expected.
Metal is in partnership with Aussie listed MOD Resources in the Kalahari Copper Belt in Botswana, with MOD having 70% and Metal 30%.
The study assesses the potential for a 9-10 year mine life with an initial 2Mtpa (million tonnes per annum) processing plant on site.