24/07/2023

RNS Hotlist July 24: Berkeley Energia, Canadian, Ecora, Galileo, Golden Metal, Kromek, Lexington, Marula, Power Metal, S4, TM1, Upland  

Golden Metal Resources (GMET), a mineral exploration company focused Pilot Mountain Project located within the prolific Walker Lane Mineral Belt in Nevada, USA. The company announced it has signed a MOU with Oxford Sigma Limited, a nuclear fusion technology company based in Oxfordshire, UK. It also said it has engaged Allan V. Moran, a highly respected modelling geologist with extensive previous working experience in the state of Nevada and western United States. Mr. Moran has been engaged specifically to model existing tungsten-copper-silver-zinc mineralisation found at the Company’s 100%-owned Pilot Mountain Project – with a specific focus on the Desert Scheelite Zone where the majority of the in-ground resource at Pilot Mountain is found. GMET said that this MOU with Oxford Sigma in combination with the LOI off-take agreement recently signed with Global Tungsten & Powders signifies not only how critical our Pilot Mountain Project is, but more importantly, how imperative the establishment of a western world supply chain for tungsten is given the current global political landscape. The company said that while the above commercial milestones continue to make headlines, its work with Mr. Allan Moran will continue in the background and the analysis being undertaken represents a very important one as it looks to continue pushing exploration and development forward across the four deposit areas at Pilot Mountain.

Comment: GMET ups the ante as far as its progress with the MOU and new appointment, something which so soon after its IPO differentiates the company from many of its peers. All the while the strategic importance of the flagship Pilot Mountain is highlighted.

Upland Resources (UPL) announced that the company is now in the formal process of assessing and contracting an onshore rig capable of developing Block SK334 in Sarawak. Members of the Upland Big Oil joint venture team are in Australia this week assessing the suitability of a new generation onshore rig, which is currently stacked and available for commission. Preliminary estimates suggest that Block SK334 contains similar resources to those found in the neighboring billion-barrel Seria field, equivalent in scale to some of Europe’s largest offshore Oil & Gas fields. The company said Block SK334 is a truly unique opportunity for a company of our size. It looks forward to updating the market as we execute against its planned strategy in Sarawak.

Comment: UPL already has its backer among the cognoscenti as far as investors are concerned, and one would presume that today’s announcement will add to this group, underlining that this as yet under-appreciated minnow could prove to be a significant growth situation.

QBT (QBT) announced that its cryptography expert and Cryptographic Optimisation team have developed what the Board believes to be an innovative approach to SHA-256 optimised computation for Bitcoin mining. The company believes that this novel approach, called Message Scheduling For Cryptographic Hashing (MSFCA), addresses one of the most challenging problems in BTC mining: partial pre-computing of future blockchains’ blocks. The company said that while at this juncture we cannot go into the specific details of what it believes is an innovative solution designed by its R&D cryptography team, suffice it to say that the new concept behind this idea disrupts, under special conditions, a fundamental BTC blockchain paradigm; computation for future blocks can take place before the previous block is mined. This is quite a radical change of the paradigm, and it believes it is well worth a patent application.

 

Power Metal Resources (POW), the AIM listed metals exploration and development company, provided a commercial update covering a number of corporate initiatives currently underway and to also provided a financial update with the latest available unaudited Gross Asset and Shareholders’ Equity position of the Company as at 30 June 2023. The company said that as far as the Balance Sheet is concerned more generally, it was very pleased to update shareholders on where this stands as at 30 June 2023. It has continued to achieve excellent growth in Shareholder Equity since the 30 September 2022 year end, reflecting the successful IPO of Golden Metal Resources and other corporate activities. Importantly its Shareholder Equity per share has grown over recent years demonstrating that the financings undertaken have fed through to increasing value for shareholders.

Comment: POW has continued to roll out its strategy against a tough stock market environment, something which means that the value achieved for shareholders is all the more impressive. One would expect this backdrop to increasingly feed into the POW share price over the course of H2 2023.

Marula Mining (AQSE: MARU) an African focused mining and development company, advises that the assay results from the 51 copper samples that were taken by Geofields Tanzania Limited as part of the Phase 1 Program at the Kinusi Copper Mine that were due to be received late in July 2023, as announced on 29 June 2023, have been delayed until early August 2023. The company said all 51 samples will now be re-assayed by SGS at their facilities in Tanzania using the Aqua Regia digestion ICP-AES / 0.01-30% copper method, which is considered suitable for high grade copper ore analyses. Results are expected to now be received by early August 2023.

Comment: Shares of MARU have been in something of a holding pattern ahead of the results from Kinusi early next month. One would expect a return of the strong momentum in the shares seen early this year to return at that point.

Galileo Resources (GLR) informed shareholders that the first two holes of the recently commenced drill programme over the Kamativi lithium – tin target in Zimbabwe have intersected multiple pegmatite dykes, some over substantial widths. The company said it was pleased with the thickness of the pegmatite intersections and are highly encouraged by the low potassium/rubidium ratios which academia and past practice shows to be often strongly indicative of lithium presence. We are preparing to dispatch some of the core to get an early indication of lithium content as we continue with the drilling programme nearby and on surrounding anomalies.

Comment: We have seen shares of GLR stabilise around the 1p level in the recent past, as the market has increasingly appreciated the progress being made. The latest from Kamativi only helps to build sentiment in the stock.

Kromek Group (KMK) announced a new broker and its finals to April 2023.  In May, £8m was raised at 5p and in June a relatively small $1.5m contact was closed in the potentially large civil nuclear market.  Finals reports a 44% increase in Revenue to £17.3m, with 51.5% gross margins there was an £1m EBITA loss, but positive in the second half. It still managed to increase losses to £7.3m and the £1.1m cash is boosted by the recent funding. KMK develop radiation and bio-detection technology with progress reported in medical imaging. After its collaboration agreement on the next generation of CZT (XRay) detector solutions which also has applications in security scanning. The commercial momentum seems to be increasing supported by concerns of potential nuclear threats and the continued need for accurate imaging in medical diagnosis. Anticipating, new orders from new sectors it should be EBITDA positive for April 2024 with reduced losses.

Comment:  There have been frequent fund raising as it inroads are made into two disparate hi-tech competitive markets. At round the placing price with a £30m Mkt cap there could be short term upside but there is a long journey ahead.

Canadian Overseas Petroleum (COPL), an international oil and gas company, announced its COPL America Inc. affiliate has signed a Non-Binding LOI for a Joint Venture with an established energy company to develop and exploit its oil reserves and resources at its Cole Creek project in Converse and Natrona Counties Wyoming. We have been working on this project for some time. We first identified the potential at Cole Creek before completion of our Atomic acquisition in March 2021. Our acquisition of the complimentary assets of Cuda in July 2022 gave our Company full control of the Cole Creek project. This LOI is the first step completed in a process initiated in October of last year after the Cuda acquisition. The company that has entered into the LOI with us is the best partner we could have of the ones we have considered.

Comment: Given the share price decline of the recent past, it may be the case that most shareholders take the view that it does not matter what initiative the company takes, or with whom, as long as it has a positive effect in this department.

Technology Minerals (TM1), the first listed UK company focused on creating a sustainable circular economy for battery metals, announced that its 48.25% owned battery recycling business, Recyclus Group Ltd, continues to make good progress through the commissioning phase at the UK’s first industrial scale lithium-ion battery recycling facility in Wolverhampton, West Midlands. The company said the commissioning phase at the Li-ion battery recycling site is performing well and on schedule. It is steadily increasing the hours of operation as it gears up to full continuous operations and it looks forward to updating the market as it continues its progress.

Comment: TM1 is one of the few small cap companies that has delivered on the mantra of this area, “execution, execution, execution.” The market will no doubt reward the stock as it moves to continuous operations.

Lexington Gold (LEX), the gold exploration and development company, announced assay results received in respect of the completed surface exploration and trenching sampling programme at its Argo Project. The company said this is a promising first set of assays from Argo showing high-grade surface mineralisation at both the Northeast and Southern workings. With this new data, it will be assessing the next steps for the project as it builds further value in its US assets.

Comment: LEX’s latest news should be the start of a fresh appreciation of the shares, which had such a decent run earlier this year. With recent funding news out of the way, the shares should resume their rise sooner rather than later.

Berkeley Energia (BKY) said that whilst the company’s focus is on resolving the current permitting situation, and ultimately advancing the Salamanca project towards production, the company and BME will continue to strongly defend its position and take all necessary actions to preserve its rights. With regard to the Spanish General Election it said with 99% of the votes counted, the results indicate the right-wing parties Partido Popular (PP) and Vox are set to win 136 seats and 33 seats respectively, whilst the left-wing parties Socialists (PSOE) and Sumar are set to win 122 seats and 31 seats respectively. BKY added that the outlook for nuclear power and the uranium market continued to strengthen during the quarter, with a number of important recent developments.

Comment: Rather tellingly, BKY highlights the Spanish election, which one would assume would work in the company’s favour with any scenario other than the present government. This should allow for the recent rally in the shares to continue as investors look forward to a Man From Del Monte event at Salamanca.

S4 Capital (SFOR) provided a trading update for the first six months of 2023 and revised targets for the full year following a preliminary review of the company’s financial results for the period and the second quarter revised forecast for 2023. The company said it remains confident its talent, business model, strategy and scaled client relationships position it well for industry-leading growth in the medium term and the initial client traction it is seeing with its Artificial Intelligence initiatives further reinforces our confidence.

Comment: Even mentioning the magic words Artificial Intelligence does not help avoid the shine being taken off the recent rally in SFOR, which has been bigged up by the company’s fans as a contributor to helping it throw off cash. The RNS was perhaps rather more straight than it needed to be, and it will be seen whether the underlying concept that digital advertising is a great growth area even in tough economic times holds water.

Ecora (ECOR) announces that is has entered into an agreement to acquire a 0.25% Net Smelter Return royalty over all metal production from the open pit of the Vizcachitas copper project in Chile, owned by Los Andes Copper Ltd, for a total cash consideration of $20 million. The company said Vizcachitas fits its core investment criteria as a large scale, low cost, and long-life project in an established mining region. Furthermore, it retains the financial flexibility to add further transactions that can similarly enhance its leading portfolio of future facing commodities royalties.

Comment: It will be interesting to see whether the market gives what is a significant deal the thumbs up over coming days, given the quantum and how it could positively affect the company.