Solstice shares head for the sun as bumper copper-gold hits break discovery drought

The one thing missing from the ASX junior mining and exploration market this year has been news of a decent discovery.

And given the pullback in metal prices from record highs in the case of copper and gold, the junior market has been in need of a confidence-building discovery flowing from their near-record levels of exploration expenditure.

Solstice Minerals, which trades under the code SLS, delivered in a big way during the week when it reported some impressive copper-gold hits at its Nanadie project to the north-west of Sandstone in Western Australia.

Its shares have taken off like a Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG in response, more than doubling to $1.13 during the week and taking Solstice’s market cap to $129m.

The results from the first five holes in a 23-hole phase 1 reverse circulation drilling program at Nanadie included 62m at 1.55% copper and 0.66g/t gold to end of hole from 256m, including 22m at 2.78% copper and 1.25g/t from 261m.

Solstice acquired the project last year for a knock consideration, with its maiden drilling program following on from work at the property from the likes of BHP dating back to 1996/97.

The project was never going to be a company-maker for BHP but market confidence is running high that Nanadie might just fit the bill for Solstice.

Managing director Nick Castleden said it was an extraordinary first up set of drill results and demonstrated that “this is a system with potential for real scale as well as substantial zones of higher-grade material outside of the existing mineral resource estimate”.

“This is not a typical single zone system, but a broad stack of mineralised mafic intrusive rocks, with disseminated sulphide-style copper/gold distributed over significant intervals,” Castleden said.

The existing resource from historic drilling stands at an inferred 40.4Mt at 0.4% copper and 0.1g/t gold for 162,000t of copper and 130,000oz of gold.

Nimy Resources (ASX:NIM):

Nimy Resources (NIM) sending off a shipment of high-grade gallium ore from its Block 3 discovery to the north-west of Southern Cross in Western Australia to the US for processing testwork was a big deal for the $23 million (6.5c) company.

The US is of course leading the non-China world’s fightback against China’s control – and weaponisation – of a vast array of critical metals. The latest attack move from the US is its plan to build a $US12 billion stockpile of critical metals for civilian purposes, alongside what its military has long stockpiled.

When it comes to critical metals, gallium is right up there with the best of them. In fact, it is the most susceptible to the non-China world being starved of supplies because China controls 98% of production and refining of the metal.

Gallium is a tiny market compared with some of the other critical metals but its use in semi-conductors, high power magnets, the PV industry and fighter jet radars gives it a particular ability to damage the non-China world’s military and civilian industries.

Having a resource under its belt at Block 3, and now shipping off some samples to the US for testing, gives Nimy a front row seat to the fast evolving mechanisms under which China’s control of gallium is being tackled by the non-China world, particularly the US.

As it is, the shipment is being picked up by M2i Global, a US company specialising in developing complete supply chains for critical metals, with the US military likely a particular target after China effectively banned gallium exports.

M2i is known for its experience in tapping US government funding pathways and strategic offtake structures.

For good measure, Nimy is also discussing accessing the Australian government’s $1.2 billion critical minerals reserve fund.

The current 2,700t resource at Block 3 may seem small when compared with other metal projects. But the resource is the start of the story with geophysics indicating the host unit continues along strike for a further 3.5km.

And besides, gallium is a high value metal in which production of as little as 40tpa is meaningful in world terms, even for the likes of Rio Tinto which is planning that sort of gallium production from tapping the liquor stream at a Canadian aluminium operation.

So Nimy is doing the sensible thing by setting out to find a development pathway for the current resource before building the resource bigger still.

The company is set to outline where to next for its gallium ambitions at next week’s Resources Rising Stars “Summer Series” in Sydney and Brisbane.

BHP Xplor:

BHP has selected a record 10 participants in its 2026 early-stage support program for exploration known as Xplor.

Now its if fourth year, Xplor involves a six-month program in which junior participants receive an equity-free grant of $US500,000 along with lots of BHP advice and expertise to accelerate their exploration.

In past years, it was easy enough to say that BHP had selected a bunch of junior exploration companies to participate.

This year, “participants” is more appropriate as the latest cohort includes traditional exploration companies along with a bunch of companies that bring a strong technology bent to the Xplor cohort.

There is a good reason for that according to BHP Group Exploration Officer, Tim O’Connor.

“Fundamentally, that’s a bit of a necessity because the discovery of big things is not keeping up with the amount of demand that we think is coming over the longer term,” O’Connor said.

“So the ability to grow the pie is increasingly challenging, particularly over the last 15 years when it comes to copper.”

He said the inclusion of the technology driven explorers – there has only been one previously – is about getting back to the root purpose  of Xplor to “transform how we think of discovery”.

“And when we think about discovery, we see discovery as requiring some fundamental shifts, not just, obviously, with the juniors who have good ideas that we can try new things with, but with potentially disruptive technology.”

 O’Connor said that there were two different types of technology in the 2026 cohort.

“You see large data AI-type technology, but you also see some direct detection technologies, whether it be, for example, the DNA-type approach,” he said.

The variety of technologies in the cohort is a critical feature. “The concept of direct detection or a single tool that helps fix exploration, I think, is fraught with peril,” O’Connor said.

Orion Minerals (ASX:ORN):

Given the global reach of BHP, it was not surprising that only two ASX-listed companies were selected for the 2026 Xplor program – Litchfield Minerals (LMS) and Orion Minerals (ORN).

Litchfield was able to follow up its selection by reporting more thick copper-zinc hits (128m at 0.6% copper and 1% zinc with some silver on a combined basis) at its Oonagalabi project in the Northern Territory.

Its share trotted 10.7% higher in Thursday’s market to 77c.

Litchfield said the results “reinforce our conviction that we are dealing with a large, robust copper–zinc system with genuine scale”. It is the very reason why BHP was attracted to Oonagalabi in the first place.

Orion, which is today’s focus, has remained flat at 3.4c for a market cap of $275 million, which says it’s not the average explorer.

In fact the company is on a pathway to becoming a producer of 30,000tpa of copper and 65,000tpa of zinc when its two projects in South Africa’s Northern Cape province, Prieska and Okiep 400km to the north, achieve steady state production in coming years.

That’s interesting stuff for a $275m company given that if the projects had anything but a South African location, Orion would likely be trading at a multiple of its current market cap. And it goes without saying that the current market cap does not give any value to Orion’s extensive Northern Cape exploration ground.

Being included in BHP’s Xplor program for the exploration potential of the ground – Prieska and Okiep are excluded because they are development projects – could well prompt a re-rate of Orion for its exploration appeal.

As an aside, BHP made a point in its failed tilt for Anglo American last year that it did want any of Anglo American’s South African assets. But they did not include copper which is BHP’s main interest in Orion’s ground.

Orion’s exploration ground includes coverage of a copper belt that back in its day saw 2 million tonnes of copper produced from a Newmont and later Gold Fields operation in  the Okiep region with grades of up to 10% copper.

But there has been no exploration for 30 years. Again, BHP’s interest is in the potential for Orion’s ground to become a big regional copper play. The benefits of Orion’s Northern Cape exploration ground being the subject of the Xplor will not materialise in a hurry.

But at least the exploration ground it is line for some attention, something that was missing for Orion while it focussed on the Prieska and Okiep developments.

The big near-term market re-rate on the development front for Orion remains the potential for $US200-$US250m in finance and a concentrate offtake deal for Prieska with Glencore, or will it be Rio Tinto?

A December 31 update from Orion said the companies had been progressing the documentation for the financing and offtake agreements, with an update to the market early in the new year. And here we are on February 6.