Reed Resources' plans to restart the Meekatharra gold project are gaining momentum and investors seem to appreciate the new-found sense of focus, with Reed shares up 17 per cent in the past month.
Managing director Chris Reed has spent recent weeks getting his ducks in a row, including Friday's reserve upgrade at Meekatharra - to 750,800 ounces - and the appointment of one-time Equigold chief financial officer David Lim.
The next trigger for Reed, and one it hopes will really make investors sit up and take notice, is the bankable feasibility study over Meekatharra, due next month.
Reed paid $28 million for Meekatharra a year ago with a view that it could make the mine work where previous owner, London-listed Mercator Gold, had failed. The industry has a patchy record of making ageing assets profitable again. But at least one of the problems that sent Mercator into administration in 2008 - delays in moving the Great Northern Highway that divided the project - has been resolved.
Next month's study should put some meat on the bones of Reed's low capital expenditure start-up plan, which includes an open pit and scope to go underground at its Paddy's Flat deposit. In the meantime Reed has tapped Noah's Rule and Bligh Capital to work on project financing.
One of the long-standing difficulties for Reed is its extensive portfolio, including gold (Meekatharra), lithium (Mount Marion) and vanadium (Barrambie). The assets are good enough to have attracted would-be partners (Mineral Resources at Mount Marion and China Nonferrous at Barrambie) but their diversity makes it tough for the market to judge Reed's corporate direction.
Reed's decision to prioritise Meekatharra in the near term should go some way to resolving that.
At the same time there is still talk of a potential spin-off of its lithium assets, although market conditions make that unlikely to happen soon.
At Barrambie, meanwhile, rising prices and forecast supply deficits are starting to make the numbers attractive, although it is the deposit's titanium, not vanadium, that is causing the excitement.
• Equatorial Resources must be feeling pretty cosy about now. First South Africa's Exxaro Resources moved in on its neighbour in the Republic of Congo, African Iron. Now reports out of Gabon suggest the Government is considering stripping China Machinery Engineering Corp of the licence for the Belinga iron ore deposit in favour of BHP Billiton. The Government and BHP will reportedly discuss details at the Mining Indaba conference in Cape Town next month.
Belinga is right across the border from Equatorial's other iron ore project in the Republic of Congo, Badondo.
If reports are correct, it could be a big win for Equatorial, with expectations BHP could fast-track the development. A railway for Belinga could make the region's currently stranded assets, including but not limited to Badondo, start to look a whole lot more attractive.
• Northern Star Resources' belief it may be sitting on a replica of its Paulsens gold deposit, next door, has received a fillip with early assays from the neighbouring area returning gold, including 0.4m at 13.9 grams-per-tonne gold.
It is early days but the results support Northern Star's idea that the geological structure thought of historically as a fence around the mineralisation at Paulsens is nothing of the sort.
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