Top 5 Australian Mining Stocks This Week: Red Sky Energy Up 50 Percent on Well Progress

2. Mount Hope Mining (ASX:MHM)

Weekly gain: 40.63 percent
Market cap: AU$10.43 million
Share price: AU$0.225

Mount Hope Mining is an exploration and development company advancing its namesake project in New South Wales.

The property, located within the Cobar Super Basin, covers a 175 square kilometre land package and hosts five historic mines: the Mount Hope, Comet and Great Central copper mines on the western side of the property and the Mount Solitary and Solar gold mines on the eastern side.

On July 23, Mount Hope announced results from Phase 1 of maiden metallurgical test work on a composite sample taken from the Mount Solitary gold prospect. The testwork showed that the sample contained coarse, visible free gold up to 0.6 millimetres in scale. Additionally, results returned a 98 percent indicative gold recovery when processing with conventional gravity plus cyanide leaching.

The company said the results help to de-risk processing for the project ahead of the completion of a maiden mineral resource estimate.

Then on Monday, the company announced that it had received firm commitments for a AU$1.82 million placement led by Ronin Metals with AU$1.03 million.

Ronin is a fund is led by gold discovery specialist Simon Lawson and former Spartan Resources executives Craig Jones and David Coyne, who were part of Spartan’s Never Never and Pepper discoveries before its merger with Ramelius Resources (ASX:RMS,OTCPL:RMLRF). The fund’s contribution gives it a 11.9 percent holding in Mount Hope and allows it to appoint a board member.

The investment comes as Mount Hope begins the Phase 3 drill program at Mount Solitary, which is designed to expand the known mineralized footprint at the site.

3. Liberty Metals (ASX:LIB)

Weekly gain: 33.33 percent
Market cap: AU$32.8 million
Share price: AU$0.004

Liberty Metals is exploration company with a portfolio of titanium and rare earths projects in Brazil that recently announced an expansion into gold in Guyana.

The Brazilian properties consist of the 120 square kilometre Paraíba rutile project in the state of Paraíba, the 234 square kilometre Rio Grande heavy mineral sands (HMS) project in Rio Grande do Sul and the 55 square kilometre Alcobaça HMS and rare earths project in Bahia.

On August 11, the company announced it was entering an earn-in deal for a 90 percent stake in the Oko North and Oko South gold projects through a four-year binding agreement for staged payments totaling of US$8 million. The properties consist of 40 granted mining permits covering a total land package of 180 square kilometres within the Cuyuni mining district of Guyana.

The Oko North property lies adjacent to G Mining Ventures’ (TSX:GMIN,OTCQX:GMINF) Oko gold project, a major discovery made by G2 Goldfields. The Oko South property lies approximately 30 kilometers south along an interpreted continuation of the district’s trend.

Liberty stated that work on the property will begin immediately, starting with data compilation, geological mapping and a geochemical sampling program to define drill targets.

The company also announced it had completed an AU$5 million placement led by a group of leading domestic and international institutional investors, according to Liberty. Funds raised will be applied to exploration efforts at the property.

4. Chariot Resources (ASX:CC9)

Weekly gain: 32.65 percent
Market cap: AU$14.75 million
Share price: AU$0.065

Chariot Resources is a lithium exploration company with a portfolio of projects in Nigeria, the United States and Western Australia.

Much of the company’s recent focus has been in Nigeria, where it owns four projects, Fonlo, Gbugbu, Iganna and Saki, representing the country’s largest lithium landholdings. The assets previously hosted artisanal mining pits.

Chariot acquired a 67 percent interest in the projects when it entered into a joint venture with their owner Continental Lithium, which the pair named C&C Minerals.

On July 9, Chariot announced that the Nigerian government approved the transfer of three licences from Continental Lithium to C&C, as well as the second and final two-year extension to the licence covering the Fonlo project. The new transfers come in addition to three licences that were transferred in March.

Then on Tuesday (August 18), Chariot announced it had signed a term sheet with ZhongNuo Energy and C&D, a subsidiary of Xiamen C&D (SHA:600153), for a partner-funded drilling, trial mining and direct shipping ore (DS) offtake program at one of Chariot’s Nigerian properties, selected at the partners’ discretion.

ZhongNuo would undertake a minimum 1,500 metre diamond drill program across three pits, and, upon satisfactory results, would undertake trial mining, while C&D would act as an offtake buyer. Should trial mining be carried out, it would be capped at an initial 240,000 tonnes of DSO.

5. Recharge Metals (ASX:REC)

Weekly gain: 31.58 percent
Market cap: AU$22.4 million
Share price: AU$0.025

Recharge Metals is an exploration company focused on advancing its flagship Sunset Well gold project in Western Australia’s Eastern Goldfields.

Following a recent acquisition that expanded the site, the property covers a total land package of 181 square kilometres and hosts three gold trends, the Prospero, Flanders and Portia shear zones, which were identified during drilling in the 1990s.

The addition came on July 13, when the company announced it acquired the Ironstone Well project, extending the Prospero trend from 10 to 15 kilometres and adding the 4 kilometre Portia gold trend to the project. Sunset Well now consists of 10 granted prospecting licences, 15 prospecting licence applications and four exploration licence applications.

Prospero, which has seen the most exploration of the three, hosts an inferred mineral resource of 94,500 ounces of gold from 2.87 million tonnes of ore grading 1.0 grams per tonne gold, occurring at near-surface depths.

Most recently, on Monday, Recharge announced that a heritage survey of the Sunset Well project would commence in late August. The survey is the final requirement before it can begin its maiden 30,000 metre drill program targeting the Prospero deposit, anticipated to start in the fourth quarter of the year.

The planned program will be the first exploration drilling at Prospero since the 1990s and the first to use modern techniques to test the deposit.