This stock could rise 1,000%+. Watch it.

Good morning MINING AIM, and welcome to a stock you need to have on your watchlist, and if you enjoy exploration, your portfolio. 

As ever, this is not advice.

Long-time readers will know that when it comes to exploration, what I like to see is a funded operation, incredibly prospective tenure, and a decent quality management team.

• Helix Exploration: Rudyard and Ingomar Dome, drilling funded for both programs, dynamic duo Bo and David.

• Arc Minerals: Zambia and Botswana, drilling funded by Anglo American, Nick and team.

• Amaroq Minerals: Nalunaq and Stendalen, drilling funded by senior package, Eldur et co.

• Guardian Metal Resources: Pilot and Garfield, drilling funded by own capital (soon, the US government), Oliver and friends.

• Sovereign Metals: Kasiya, drilling funded by own capital and Rio Tinto, Frank Eagar and squad.

There are a few others on the list, but you get the idea. You do not want to be scrabbling about for cash in this market in order to explore your asset. It doesn't matter whether you're a Sovereign with an already gigantic defined resource, or a Helix comparatively just starting out - geological risk is enough without worrying about the money.

Anyway, there is another name on this list which should be rising far higher, but isn't. I can only assume that the market is asleep to the opportunity, because it's right up your street.

Just consider it.

This stock:

• is managed by the same exploration team which found the highest-grade, largest deposit in the world just next door.

• has just started diamond drilling at one of two prospects, using the first of four diamond drill rigs to come.

• is fully funded through to the end of the year and beyond.

• already has strong evidence that it will match the world class grades of the company next door.

If you haven't guessed yet, it's Rome Resources. Beyond the fact that drilling is started and assays will now start to come through, there are two core underreported factors that I want to highlight:

The first is that Rome is effectively Alphamin round 2. The exploration team is Alphamin. The major shareholder, Klaus Eckhof, founded and chaired Alphamin. The deposit is considered to be essentially identical to Alphamin. 

Alphamin's deposit is called Bisie. Rome's is Bisie North.

Alphamin’s Bise tin project is the highest grade tin deposit in the world, with a 4.5% grade, and it generates circa 4% of global production. The asset continues to deliver ever more tin, with Q2 production up 28% and expected to rise further.

And even after the global spook, Alphamin shares are up by well over 300% in five years. And in the lead up to the exploration find, the company rose from CAD$0.12 in late May 2022 to CAD$1.39 in late April 2024 - rising by 1,058% in just two years. Yes, the company is following the standard Lassonde Curve as production continues to ramp up - but you literally have the price chart for what success looks like.

The second is AVZ Minerals, also at one point chaired by Klaus, which under his stewardship discovered Manono, arguably the largest lithium deposit in the world. Yes, the company ran into trouble long after Klaus left, but the stock rose from AU$0.05 in September 2020 to AU$1.22 by March 2022, a rise of 2,340%.

If 1,000%+ isn't good enough for you in the space of two years, how about 2,000%+ in the space of six months?

In fact, this is underplaying it.

The stock started life with an AU$6 million market capitalisation in 2016 and by 2022 had an AU$4.5 billion market cap. 

That's a rise of 74,900%.

It sounds ridiculous, but if you don't believe me, the price charts are all publicly available. Had new management not made a series of epic blunders, it would be worth more.

Klaus brought Manono back to life.

And do you know what Manono used to be historically?

A tin mine.

Conflict issues

For those concerned about the fighting - Alphamin has been managing the issues for years without serious problems. Conflict in the eastern provinces has been going on for decades already, and this has clearly not hurt Alphamin's share price.

It is true that North Kivu province sees the highest share of violence, driven by the usual cocktail of political rivalries, land disputes and mineral interests. A ceasefire agreement in April 2023 with M23 (rebels backed by Rwanda) reduced hostilities for several months — but peace agreements broke down in October between the Kinshasa government and the rebels.

Part of the reason the peace agreement failed was an increase in confrontations between M23 and the Wazalendo, a youth self-defence group made up of DROC locals. Clashes between the Wazalendo and M23 sparked renewed tensions between the Congolese and Rwandan governments, which continue to accuse each other of using the Wazalendo and M23 as proxy armies.

Tshisekedi was re-elected in December 2023 and is realistically not going to completely fix tensions in the region. However, the 2023 peace agreement shows that ceasefires are possible and another may be agreed.

Regarding Bisie, one of the closest towns is Biruwe, and the largest city is Goma. The distance from Biruwe to the border region with Uganda and Rwanda, where all the violence is currently occurring, is approximately 200 miles via dirt roads, some of which appears unpassable.

Obviously, the violence can spillover and there is jurisdictional risk, but the fighting is really far away from Bisie (and by extension Bisie North), so it isn’t important to the investment case given how long the fighting has been going on anyway. There are pretty much no incentives to attack or take Bisie or even nearby towns.

In terms of political value, Bisie doesn’t have any, because local warlords cannot operate the mine, especially given the tonnage you need to shift to generate a profit. It’s also really far from the M23/Rwandan supply lines and also far from anything politically valuable (except perhaps Goma for M23, but they can’t take this without outright support from Rwanda which is unlikely to happen). The closest they got was closing some roads into Goma, but there Alphamin just rerouted exports.

Since the escalation of conflict at the start of 2024, tin concentrate exports from DROC have fallen by just 5%.

But the bottom line is that North Kivu is really, really big. It's three times the size of Wales. Africa operates on a geographical scale that is hard to UK investors to understand - and with a background level of violence in some jurisdictions that just requires skillful diplomacy.

Significant news flow

Investors are going to enjoy drilling from four diamond drilling rigs, with the first already up and running. Assays are going to come flooding back with what I hope will be world class tin grades. The company recently featured in The Times as the classic 'type of firm that AIM was created to serve.'

It's got the management. 

It's got the funding. 

And very soon, it'll have the grades.

-Charles Archer, 7/8/2024

As per usual, this is a risk play. Be careful to invest only what you are comfortable with, from a position of financial resilience and diversification. This is not advice.