Ordell Minerals is helmed by Michael Fowler, the former managing director of Genesis Minerals before the ‘Genesis 2.0’ recapitalisation that saw Raleigh Finlayson take over as MD.

Former Genesis chairman and long-time Evolution Mining director Tommy McKeith is Ordell’s chairman. Joining them on the board is Centaurus Metals MD Darren Gordon.

Fowler took about six months off after leaving Genesis, after which Ordell was put together in late 2022.

After securing the Barimaia project, Ordell also picked up the earlier stage Goodia and Fisher South projects.

“We raised some seed funds at that point and then we started looking for projects,” he said.

Fowler said the company sifted through 30-40 projects over a year as it built the portfolio.

Tough conditions for floats

There were just seven mining floats in the first six months of 2024, reflecting the difficult market conditions being faced by explorers at the smaller end of the market.

Despite market conditions, Ordell raised the maximum A$6 million sought under its initial public offering.

“It was reasonably challenging, but we had very good support from Argonaut, the main broker, and some other shareholders that were involved with Genesis when I was there,” Fowler said.

The IPO saw 30 million shares issued at A20c each.

The stock only briefly dipped below A20c shortly after listing last Friday and has traded as high as A22.5c since.

The company has a market capitalisation of about A$10 million.

“It’s a nice tight market cap with an EV of less than A$4 million at the IPO,” Fowler said.

“Any success we have, there’s plenty of upside in our share price and market cap, that’s for sure.”

Barimaia

Ordell’s flagship project is an 80% stake in the Barimaia gold project, near Mount Magnet in WA’s Murchison region.

Barimaia was acquired from Genesis, which is now the equal largest shareholder in Ordell alongside Fowler, with each holding 8% of the company.

Fowler said the project was acquired by Genesis in 2015 because it looked similar to Genesis’ Ulysses deposit in Leonora, which is now being developed as a high-grade underground mine.

“We ended up doing a couple of programs over a couple of years, but the focus really was Ulysses and Barimaia got put on the back burner – but we had some really nice results from the exploration we did at that time,” he said.

Those results included 15m at 11.4 grams per tonne gold from 74m; 17m at 3.4g/t gold from 49m; 19m at 1.5g/t gold from 18m; 5m at 4g/t gold from 43m; and 70m at 0.7g/t from 59m.

“That work continued on and off up until 2021 when the last aircore program was completed and that extended the mineralisation right out to the east there,” Fowler said.

“But it was not a priority for Genesis when I was MD or obviously when Ral took over.

“They focused completely on Leonora, which is absolutely the correct thing to be doing, so it was sort of an unloved project, but it is highly prospective and warrants a lot more work.”

A 2500m reverse circulation program will kick off next week, which will be followed by another 2500-3000m program in August/September.

Nearology

Barimaia sits in a very interesting position, being adjacent to Ramelius Resources’ flagship Mt Magnet operation and within trucking distance of two other mills owned by Spartan Resources and Westgold Resources.

The project shares strong geological similarities to Ramelius’ Eridanus deposit, which has a resource 1.2 million ounces of gold at 1.7g/t gold.

Eridanus is currently being mined via open pit, which is expected to yield 300,000oz.

In the medium term, Ramelius is targeting 500,000-600,000oz of production from Eridanus via a pit cutback and underground, which could justify a mill expansion at Mt Magnet.

Ramelius has touted the deposit as Mt Magnet’s next 1Moz-plus mine.

Barimaia is just 8km to the east.

Greenfields options

Ordell’s other projects are the Fisher South gold project, 40km along strike from Emerald Resources’ North Laverton gold project, and the Goodia lithium project, 50km south of Develop’s Dome North lithium deposit.

Fisher South has only seen limited exploration in the past and is considered prospective for nickel and other base metals, as well as gold.

Goodia hosts confirmed pegmatites, which are yet to be tested for lithium.

“It’s really quite a prospective project from a lithium point of view,” Fowler said, adding that the project will also be tested for gold mineralisation.

Ordell plans to complete heritage surveys on both projects by the end of the current quarter, which will be followed by a wide-spaced aircore drilling program at Fisher South and geochemical sampling at Goodia.