All guns are firing at Aim-listed junior miner Strategic Minerals Plc (LON:SML)
The last quarter saw record local sales at its iron ore tailings plan at Cobre in New Mexico, which is helping to funding exploration programmes for tin and tungsten in Cornwall and cobalt in Australia.
Strategic also recently signed up a new client at Cobre that it anticipates will double sales over the current year.
WATCH: New Cobre client could prove "spectacular", says Strategic Minerals boss
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As a result, the company is now in a ‘cash generative’ phase said chairman Alan Broome and set to perform strongly.
That will mean a profitable 2017, he added, while the company is now in the healthy position of reviewing what to do with the incoming cash. At end March the cash position was US$695,000.
Cobre notched up revenues of US$834,000 in the latest three months to March,as it sold 14,264 tons of iron at a profit margin of over 50% of sales.
That compares with revenues of US$227,000 a year earlier and is over US$300,000 ahead of the previous record set in the final quarter of 2016.
Cobre also received a settlement of US$400,000 for its dispute over construction of a new rail link to the facility that overran.
At Redmoor in Cornwall, where Strategic Minerals now a 50% stake, a 23 hole drilling programme has just got underway while at Hanns Camp in Australia the emphasis has now switched to cobalt after an initial exploration programme for nickel.
SML currently has agreements in place to acquire a 25% stake in CARE, the operator at Hanns Camp, but said today it is talks to acquire a larger stake.