Here are some mining stocks that we continue to follow closely as they make major steps in progressing their projects.
Greatland Gold (LSE:GGP) – a gold bug’s favourite, this Australian gold miner has just started construction of a box cut and decline on its Havieron project in Western Australia, only a week after Newcrest Mining, the lead operator on the project, secured an A$146 million funding approval. The miner’s initial resource estimate released in December showed 3.4 mn ounces of gold and 160,000 tonnes of copper; additional drilling since then helped Greatland Gold identify new targets. The share price has come off its December peak but the company is making progress at pace and should deliver good results in the year ahead.
Brigadier Gold (TSX-V:BRG/FRA:B7LM) – the junior gold explorer working in the Sinaloa state in Mexico had a busy year of exploration in 2020. As drill results started coming in they confirmed the firm’s high expectations for its Picachos project, namely the St. Augustine mine close to the Picachos village where in the past there had only been artisanal mining. Diamond drilling under the oversight of experienced geologist and Mexico specialist Michelle Robinson included four drill holes of which one returned 9.49 g/t gold and 24 g/t silver across three metres and the second core yielded 6.24 g/t gold and 79 g/t silver. The company is only getting started on exploration but the latest set of results have already boosted the share price by 20% to CAD 0.24.
Bushveld Minerals [LON:BNMB] – the primary vanadium producer is working on a proof of concept hybrid minigrid at its Vametco mine in South Africa. The project uses the abundantly available solar power to generate electrical energy and then store the power in vanadium flow batteries on the site. Electricity generated by the minigrid, the first commercial scale hybrid project in Africa, will generate 10% of the mine’s electricity requirement. The company’s share price dipped in January but given that the global demand for vanadium batteries is forecast to grow at an annual rate between 8% and 12%, shares are unlikely to stay low for long.
Eurasia Mining [LSE:EUA] – A popular stock with mining investors in 2020, the owner of the West Kytlim mine in the Ural Mountains in Russia is in the process of finding a buyer for its platinum, paladium and rhodium assets. The process has been stalled by travel restrictions due to the corona virus and a series of European and Russian holidays but some non-binding offers are already on the table and being considered by the company. While trying to finalise the sale the miner has also received approval for its definitive feasibility study. It is well padded with a cash position of over $7 million which it plans to use to upscale mining and extend it to run all year around. Eurasia Mining shares dropped from a high of 34.00 in early January to 30.44 Thursday but a successful sale or an increased rate of production will give the share price a further nudge higher.
Kodiak Copper TSXV:KDK: Shares in the junior miner exploring the MPD copper-gold porphyry project in British Columbia saw a giddy 680% increase during 2020 following the drilling and assay of the initial exploration phase at the site. A major boon was also adding Teck Resources, Canada’s largest diversified resource company, to the company’s shareholder register. The raised capital will be used to fund a further drill programme at MPD, which in the past has been only lightly explored by bigger names like Rio Tinto and Newmont, and also potentially Kodiak’s copper-gold porphyry at Mohave in Arizona. Shares have dropped from their 2020 peak and settled in a lower trading band between CAD1.33-CAD1.80 but further drilling updates are set to reignite a rally in this mining stock.