Artemis, Guardian, Power, & ECR: your Tuesday digest

Good morning MINING AIM and welcome to Tuesday. Let's dive in.

Artemis Advances

Artemis - which is fast becoming one of my favourite plays after it broke the gold scale last month - has executed a Memorandum of Understanding with Anax Metals to assess:

• the treatment of the copper content of Artemis' Greater Carlow resource

• gold exploration by Artemis on Anax tenements, including at Whim Creek

Both parties will be assessing the potential for the processing of Artemis' copper at the proposed Whim Creek processing hub. The proposed Whim Creek Project will consist of a new 400,000 tonnes per annum concentrator, and a refurbished heap leach facility capable of treating oxide, transitional and supergene ore. By fully utilising its processing capacity, Whim Creek could become a substantial West-Australian copper producer.

Whim Creek is located 115km southwest of Port Hedland in the West Pilbara region, and circa 80km east of the Artemis Carlow Castle deposit which is itself located circa 25 km east of Karratha.

This 'alliance' could eventually include Whim Creek, Sulphur Springs Oxide, Whundo and Carlow Castle - with Artemis also potentially able to explore Anax's tenure for gold, just 70km from De Grey Mining's Hemi gold project which has a resource of 12.5 million ounces of gold.

Executive Director George Ventouras enthused 'We are thrilled to collaborate with Anax Metals on the Pilbara copper alliance via this MoU and expand our own potential for gold exploration. The West Pilbara region of Western Australia is an exciting jurisdiction to be operating in and this initiative allows each company to focus on its strengths and on delivering results for all stakeholders.'

The general idea is that Artemis's copper could be processed at Whim Creek - with an outright asset sale/purchase agreement, joint venture or joint mining and funding agreement all being considered.

This all makes sense; there are significant operational efficiencies, better open pit mining contract rates due to increased mine-life, better financing terms available to a larger project, smaller fixed costs and reduced capex, alongside better environmental credentials - in short, all the common reasons for M&A activity given the effect of inflation in the sector.

This is major news as it is a pathway to both production and increased exploration - and the stock is only up 3%.

GMET Geophysics

Guardian Metal has announced that inversion modelling of magnetic geophysical data over the Porphyry West target at Pilot Mountain has delineated a magnetic anomaly which is significantly larger than the anomaly constituting the Porphyry South, the original porphyry target at the project. 

Geophysical inversion modelling has also identified an additional significant magnetic anomaly, North Target, in a new target area at Pilot Mountain.

CEO Oliver Friesen enthuses that 'These results are enticing as the North Target is within a previously unexplored portion of the Project, and we will be following up with our boots on the ground geological team. Also, with the receipt of the first regular batches of drill sample laboratory assay results (including overlimits), we are looking forward to releasing inaugural drill assay results.'

There's a bunch of further geological information in the RNS, but the key points to understand is that the company has (a) £4 million+ is cash (b) another exciting target and (c) while it is being careful not to say so, is continuing to uncover evidence that these systems may all be one giant connected porphyry.

This is the gift that keeps on giving.

GMET also announced options worth circa 1% of the market cap issued to two third-party consultants, exercisable at 40p (a decent premium). Consultants taking options over cash is always a good sign.

The stock is up circa 2%.

POWer Up

Power has signed a Letter of Intent with Al Masane Al Kobra Mining Company (AMAK).

AMAK is a monster - last quarter it generated a net profit of £12.5 million, and the market cap is in a different league to Power. AMAK annual production is currently 25-35 koz of gold dore, 40-50 koz of silver dore, 30-40 kt of copper concentrate, and 60-80 kt of zinc concentrate.

The general idea is that Power will spend $3 million to earn a 49% stake in the Qatan exploration licence in southern Saudi Arabia - remember as I have said many times before, Saudi simply lacks the technical exploration expertise, but it has masses of capital to deploy. As Power does not have $3 million, and is unlikely to place shares anytime soon given the terms of the ACAM JV, one assumes that Sean's activity in the Middle East is bearing financial fruit, or else a portion of GMET shares may soon be sold off-market.

Really, these are the only two choices.

Power will be exploring using a 'wide variety of industry-accepted exploration techniques to advance the license, including, if applicable, defining an initial MRE with Industry-standard technical work to be carried out at every stage.'

The 72 km² Qatan exploration licence is located approximately 70 km east of the AMAK mines, with the last exploration work carried out on the licence back in 2017 by SRK to conduct a data review and carry out some additional drilling on the Habdah prospect within the licence.

This is a big, big deal. The stock is up by less than 3%.

ECR Antimony

ECR merits a brief mention - a rock chip sample of up to 75.6g/t was unearthed at Uncle Terry (Lolworth), but the business has also advised that its maiden drilling at Tambo is going to start within weeks - and a drilling application has been lodged to follow up that 32% antimony result at Bailieston.

Remember, China just imposed export controls on antimony - and grant funding for exploration may be viable given western desires to wrest supply control from China.

I don' think it's worth going into too much detail on Lolworth until all 378 rock chip samples are back (maybe a month from now). The key point is that rock samples tend to be selectively chosen, but that these samples are already showing decent promise.

No, nothing earth-shattering has been announced yet (Artemis and its scale-breaking samples this is not). But the market cap is under £5 million and the company is doing all the right things.

It should be on most junior exploration watchlists.

And finally...

Sovereign Metals has been hit a large sell, and is now itself on sale (pun intended). The company just released an ASX announcement noting there is no reason for the sharp drop - meaning the seller is probably getting out because of something banal like a tax bill. 

Jubilee Metals is also on sale - once Fidelity stops (it must be them at this point), the stock should resurge on the fundamentals.

Greatland Gold will show its hand soon enough - expect some major volatility.

In terms of nearest term news, we are all waiting for the Alien Metals JV for Hancock, assays from ARC Minerals' Botswana exploration, the results of Helix's casing efforts, and initial assays from Rome's latest drilling.

Have a great day!

- Charles Archer, 10/9/2024