ASX Runners: Grand Gulf, Meteoric, Aus Strategic | Australian Markets

“Ahhhh stability” – or no less than a little relative stability – was welcomed back to the markets this week.

The ASX this week noticed some sanity and quantity return to trading with the ASX ending up 1.3 per cent, after a Monday morning sell-off fuelled by Friday losses from the escalating China-United States trade battle.

Following China’s retaliatory export restrictions on uncommon earth components utilized in defence, vitality and automotives – of which China controls some 97 per cent of manufacturing for almost all – US President Donald Trump launched a probe into the need for tariffs on important minerals this week.

Underestimating simply how dependent dozens of US defence and aerospace corporations are on China’s uncommon earth merchandise, the US will maybe need to look elsewhere for its uncommon earths. China at the moment meets 70 per cent of US demand.

The probe’s announcement noticed Australian uncommon earth and important minerals stocks take off, securing a stranglehold of two of our 4 Bulls N’ Bears Runners spots on the short week.

Despite the subdued quiet in markets earlier than the Easter long weekend – relative to the previous couple of months – gold continued its legendary march passing US$3000 an ounce simply weeks in the past to succeed in a staggering US$3350 per ounce this week.

The yellow metallic’s dominance mustn’t shock to Runners readers by now however for a nation that possesses probably the most gold reserves within the world, it’s a severely large deal.

Having mentioned that, the Bulls N’ Bears Runners record doesn’t function a goldie this week, as uncommon earths understandably stole the show. The high spot was again awarded to an unlikely all-comer – an Aussie oil and gasoline minnow that secured an option over a mammoth-scale oil prospect in Africa.

GRAND GULF ENERGY LTD (ASX: GGE)

up 167% (0.15c – 0.4c)

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears ASX Runner of the Week is oil and gasoline exploration company Grand Gulf Energy, which noticed its share price go up immediately after the company introduced a binding option settlement to accumulate a potential 1.1-billion-barrel oil prospect within the Walvis Basin, in offshore Namibia.

Offshore Namibia is one of the most well liked addresses globally for oil and gasoline exploration and more than 11 billion barrels of oil have been found previously three years.

Oil and gasoline super majors energetic within the area embody Shell, Chevron, TotalEnergies and GALP, offering ample potential suitors for funding preparations for the seven wells Grand Gulf has deliberate for 2025.

The fanfare and ensuing 167 per cent share price soar on Monday, from 0.15 cents to a peak of 0.4c. This was on the back of an option, over an offshore Namibia utility, which nonetheless hasn’t been accredited and should then be transformed into a petroleum exploration licence.

There is a strong likelihood it may stay pending for some time and, maybe, not be permitted in any respect.

That didn’t maintain some punters back – $220,000 price of stock traded to open the week. Small-cap oil exploration is about as akin to high-stakes playing as an investor can discover. A profitable properly can yield multiples in returns, however the more common end result – a dry properly – can practically wipe out an investment.

The exploration block in query covers 16,800 sq. kilometres in water depths from 1400 metres to 2000m and lies to the south of the Murombe-1 and Wingat-1 wells.

The company executed an accompanying $700,000 placement over the weekend to skilled and complex gamblers at an difficulty price of 2c per share. The funds will possible go in the direction of the company’s working capital and ‘evaluation’.

METEORIC RESOURCES (ASX: MEI)

Up 101% (6.7c – 13.5c)

Meteoric Resources led the uncommon earths charge this week, taking out second place on the Runners record after the company unveiled a maiden mineral useful resource estimate for its Barra do Pacu (BDP) licence within its Caldeira ionic clay project in Brazil.

The company’s uncommon earth project falls beneath the ionic clay classification, a notably cheap-to-exploit mineralisation. To date, it’s only the second kind of mineralisation – outdoors of carbonatites equivalent to Lynas Resources’ world-class Mt Weld deposit – to be efficiently mined.

The maiden mineral useful resource estimate at BDP got here in at a substantial 389 million tonnes grading some 2204 elements per million (ppm) complete uncommon earth oxides (TREO), together with a high-grade indicated useful resource of 32Mt grading 4130ppm TREO.

Meteoric’s international Caldeira useful resource now sits at a whopping 1.5 billion tonnes grading 2359ppm TREO of important uncommon earth oxides, together with 195,000t yttrium oxide, 195,000t praseodymium oxide, 554,000t neodymium oxide and 65,000t samarium oxide. Yttrium and samarium have each been focused by China.

The company’s share price ran all through the week to close on Friday up more than 100 per cent at 13.5c per share from a close final week of simply 6.7c per share.

Meteoric says its broader international useful resource incorporates all of the banned Chinese uncommon earths, aside from scandium. The company believes the project might be the subsequent low-cost manufacturing different outdoors of China, which it outlined in an initial scoping examine in July final 12 months.

Rare earths producers have had a robust time of late. When the world-class Mt Weld project in Western Australia can barely keep afloat, it turns into evident uncommon earths are decidedly not that uncommon in any respect. However, demand for the important minerals is rising and non-Chinese alternate options are a should for the US to stabilise provide.

AUSTRALIAN STRATEGIC MATERIALS LTD (ASX: ASM)

up 97% (39c – 77c)

Australian Strategic Materials (ASM) received on a run early this week prompted by Trump’s uncommon earths dilemma, and the all-knowing ASX booked the company with a dashing ticket on Monday, apparently unaware of why its share price was operating.

ASM responded it was not conscious of any unknown data, nevertheless the company famous that due to China’s elevated export restrictions, it was uniquely positioned to ship a broad portfolio of uncommon earth merchandise from ore via to alloy outdoors of China’s affect.

The share price ran up 97 per cent by Friday to high at 77c from a close of 39c final week on a very helpful $5M in stock traded.

Many of the supplies affected by China’s new export restrictions are already obtainable or deliberate via ASM’s different provide chain, offering its companions a viable, de-risked answer within the company’s Dubbo project in New South Wales.

ASM has been investigating different decrease capital and shorter implementation choices to recuperate gentle (neodymium and praseodymium) and heavy (dysprosium and terbium) uncommon earth components from the Dubbo project.

The company says Dubbo is construction-ready, with all its main permits accredited. Dubbo at the moment incorporates an estimated 75.18Mt useful resource at ore grades for heavy uncommon earths, zirconium, niobium and hafnium.

NEUROSCIENTIFIC BIOPHARMACEUTICALS LTD (ASX: NSB)

Up 97% (3.5c – 6.9c)

NeuroScientific Biopharmaceuticals took out the ultimate spot on the ASX Runners of the Week record, after the neurodegenerative pharmaceutical innovator made a shrewd pickup of the stem cell company, Isopogen WA.

Isopogen WA holds the rights to utilise its patented StemGood stem cell technology, which is used to supply a life-changing mobile drugs.

StemGood cells work together with a affected person’s immune system to modulate its response to irritation. The mobile drugs technology makes use of cells from grownup bone marrow and is grown in tradition.

The Isopogen acquisition despatched NeuroScientific’s share price hovering immediately to peak a large 97 per cent on the day to six.9c on $650,000 of stock traded.

The company says early indications from a part two trial in a kind of Crohn’s illness, which impacts the intestine, counsel the StemGood technology is a potent, efficacious and protected remedy suited to a globally huge market.

Crohn’s illness is a kind of inflammatory bowel illness, with a international therapy market estimated to be price US$13.8 billion by 2026.

As a outcome of the acquisition, NeuroScientific had accomplished a placement to raise $3.5M at 3.5c a share via the girls and boys at Westar Capital. The biotech company hopes the raise will help it to use the subsequent highly effective technology in regenerative drugs.

NeuroScientific believes stem cell remedy is a cornerstone of trendy drugs. Stem cells have a distinctive capability to grow to be any cell within the physique. The stem cells are hailed because the physique’s grasp cells. This week’s acquisition may probably be a grasp stroke by Neuroscientific.

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