Weekly Metals Mining Rundown and Peer Table - Free Edition for Week Ending 7 Mar 2025

This past week’s top & bottom metal price and mining company peer group movers include:

This past week’s top 40 performing metals mining stocks (out of Peer Table’s 426) include (share price rounding errors apply, as sourced from Google Finance):

Mining company announcements incorporated into this week’s Peer Table (resource updates, economic studies, changes in attributable project ownership) include:

• 4 Mar 2025 - Gold developer Barton Gold Holdings (ASX:BGD) announced an updated resource for its Tunkillia gold project in Australia that grew gold ounces by ~120,000 oz Au and now also includes 3.1 Moz Ag, bringing total Tunkillia project resources to 1.6Moz Au (and 3.1Moz Ag) and total company wide South Australia resources to ~1.74 Moz AuEq. This lowers BGD’s market cap/oz to US$20/oz AuEq - a slight discount to our global gold developer peer group median $21/oz AuEg. This update paves the way for the optimization/expansion of the company’s (now outdated) 2024 Scoping Study, which currently yields a P/NAV (market cap/NPV) of 0.22x at Friday’s close (at our Reference gold price of $1,800/oz, according to the NPV sensitivity analysis provided in the 2024 study) - in-line with our week-ending global peer group median P/NAV of 0.22x.

  

  Cross section 111,700N showing key drill intersections from Nov / Dec 2024 drilling and the extension of the Area 223 MRE block model beyond the 2024 ISS optimised open pit shell (Source: Barton Gold Holdings)

  
  

• 4 Mar 2025 - Gold developer Santana Minerals (ASX:SMI) announced a refined resource estimate for its main RAS deposit at its flagship Bendigo-Ophir gold project in New Zealand, which increased the deposit’s already high open pit grades (while decreasing ounces slightly) to (1.534 Moz Au @) 2.5 g/t Au Indicated and (0.434 Moz Au @) 2.1 g/t Au Inferred (excluding some UG at RAS and other smaller deposits). This brings total project and company resources to 2.337 Moz Au. This higher grade estimate should bode well for the grade profile in an updated PFS that the copmany says is underway now. SMI’s solid multi-gram per tonne open pit grades combined with an appearingly low strip ratio (that may be even further improved in the PFS) helps lead to the stock to trade at a premium P/NAV (market cap/ NPV from 2024 PFS) of 0.65x (vs. gold developer mean 0.44x and median 0.21x at our Reference gold price of $1,800/oz), and makes the company look ripe for acquisition by some intermediate gold producer seeking to develop one of New Zealand’s most significant gold discoveries in decades (especially as the project continues to advance through development process).

• 5 Mar 2025 - Lithium clay developer Ioneer (ASX:INR) announced an updated resource estimate for its flagship DFS-stage Rhyolite Ridge lithium (and boron) project in Nevada, which increased Rhyolite Ridge South resources by 45% and increased overall lithium resources by ~17% to 3.97 Mt LCE (plus 14.66 Mt boric acid), paving the way for upcoming mineral reserve update (and updated DFS with optimized economics) due to be released this April . INR with its large, advanced-stage project (with initial DFS completed in 2020 and major permitting milestones completed in 2024) trades at the top of its class on market cap/t LCE (excluding boron) at US$55/t LCE ($14/oz AuEq), and looks ripe to be acquired by a lithium producer (whose peer group median is a much higher $241/t LCE or $63/oz AuEq) looking to add US lithium production.

• 5 Mar 2025 - Gold explorer James Bay Minerals (ASX:JBY) announced a maiden JORC resource estimate for its flagship Independence Gold project in Nevada, which grew the historic 43-101 skarn resource by 24% to 0.984 Moz (inferred) grading high at 6.67 g/t Au. Total resources including near surface low grade grow to 1.37 Moz Au. JBY stock traded up +1.2% over past week (outperforming gold explorer peer group median performance of flat +0%) which trades at a week-ending market cap/ oz resource of US$18.5/oz - just above our 62 company gold explorer median market cap/oz of $15.4/oz AuEq and well below the mean of $38/oz AuEq.

• 5 Mar 2025 - Gold explorer Galway Metals (TSX:GWM) announced filing of a NI 43-101 Technical Report for a resource update from its secondary Estrades gold-zinc-polymetallic project in Quebec, for which results were previously announced on 27 Jan 2025 alongside (buried under) some encouraging metallurgical test results that showed gold recoveries improving by 31% to 86.6%. The revamped resource estimate was largely unchanged and showed gold value share of indicated resources now making up 48%. The estimate grew total Estrades project gold-equivalent resources by ~5% to 0.85 Moz AuEq @ ~6g/t AuEq (37% Au, 29% from Zn, rest Cu-Ag-Pb) at our estimated 3 month trailing average metal prices, with overall company resources (including flagship Clarence Stream Project in New Brunswick) increasing by more than 1% to 3.10 Moz AuEq (83% from Au). These resources trade at a week-ending GWM market cap/oz of US$11.3/oz AuEq - a 27% discount to our 63 company gold explorer peer group median market cap / oz of $15.4/oz AuEq.

• 4 Mar 2025 - Copper explorer Canadian Critical Minerals (TSXV:CCMI) announced a resource update for its flagship Bull River Mine project in BC Canada, which increased indicated copper resource pounds (grading high at 1.58% Cu) by 11% and increased indicated gold resource ounces (grading 0.389 g/t Au) by 17%. Overall project resources grew to 751 Mlbs CuEq (71% from Cu, rest Au-Ag) or 1.2 Moz AuEq at our estimated 3-month trailing average metal prices, which trade at a week-ending CCMI market cap/oz of US$0.011/lb CuEq ($7.1/oz AuEq) - a 39% discount to our 34 company copper explorer peer group median market cap/lb of $0.018/lb CuEq ($11.7/oz AuEq).

• 6 Mar 2025 - Diversified producer Rio Tinto (NYSE:RIO) completed its acquisition of lithium producer Arcadium Lithium (NYSE:ALTM), and we have now also added RIO to our lithium producer peer group with its newfound 31% of resource metal value coming from lithium and now only 54% coming from copper (excluding significant resources of non-metallics/iron ore/ bauxite/ aluminum/ titanium/ borate/ diamonds - all of which investors get essentially for free compared to most pure-play copper or lithium producer alternatives). RIO trades at the top of both our diversified and lithium producer peer groups on market cap / unit resource, at US$0.70/lb CuEq or $1,721/t LCE or $448/oz AuEq (at Friday’s close) - a premium to our 3-company diversified producer peer group median of $0.22/lb CuEq ($140/oz AuEq) and to our lithium producer median of $254/t LCEe ($66/oz AuEq), which leaves RIO dominantly well-positioned to acquire mostly any company it chooses (most of which are currently relatively cheap).

• 6 Mar 2025 - Gold developer (and small-scale gold producer) i-80 Gold Corp (NYSE:IAUX) announced an updated PEA for the underground portion of its Granite Creek project in Nevada, which appears to have replaced an old 2021 PEA for same project but excluded the open pit portion that is due to be captured in a separate PEA to be released later this year in Q4. Excluding the company’s ongoing small-scale production and the OP portion of this Granite Creek project (for which an updated PEA is due in Q4 2025) and including 3 other previously announced PEAs (2025 PEA for Cove, 2025 PEA for Ruby Hill Complex Mineral Hill Open Pit, and 2025 PEA for Ruby Hill Complex Archimedes UG) and including today’s Granite Creek UG PEA, IAUX trades at P/NAV (market cap/combined NPVs) of 0.14x at our estimated 3-month trailing gold price of $2,740/oz Au - a 93% premium to our 57-company gold developer peer group median of 0.07x (at same gold price). And interestingly, IAUX with its 4 PEAs is the only stock out of 57 gold developers that has a negative NPV at our Reference gold price of $1,800/oz, making it one of the torquiest of the group. On market cap / oz resource, IAUX trades at $23/oz AuEq - a slightly premium to gold developer group median $22/oz AuEq, and perhaps more importantly a stark 80% discount to our intermediate gold producer peer group median market cap/oz of $113/oz - making IAUX an ideal acquisition target and re-rating opportunity for any of these intermediate gold producers looking to invest in, and ramp-up, IAUX’s portfolio of near-development/past-producing Nevada gold projects.