09 April 2025
MiningNews - Shrinking IGO cuts Antipa loose
By Haydn Black
IGO has built up a sizeable, highly speculative exploration portfolio over the past two decades to deploy the rivers of cash once generated from its nickel, gold, and lithium mining operations in Western Australia, but as its income has dwindled, the company has started making cuts.
IGO long ago got out of gold in favour of lithium – in hindsight what looks like a mistake today – and with nickel and lithium prices under the hammer and a new managing director at the helm, the inevitable process of portfolio rationalisation is steaming ahead.
As Stein's law says, if something cannot go on forever, it will stop. And it appears the music has slowed for IGO's exploration efforts.
The company recently offered its legacy Fraser Range gold assets to West Cobar Metals, although Rumble Resources exercised some pre-emptive rights over the Thunderstorm licences this week, and now IGO has pulled stumps in one of the hottest copper-gold regions in WA: the Paterson province.
IGO is pulling out of the 1520sq.km Paterson project after five years, meaning junior partner Antipa Minerals will return to 100% control of the tenement package surrounding its Minyari Dome deposit. IGO pulled out after spending A$15 million of a possible $30 million.
With 2.3 million ounces of gold and 83,000 tonnes of copper, plus minor silver and cobalt, Minyari Dome isn't the largest deposit in the Paterson province, but it is the linchpin of what is now a 4060sq.km tenement package at which millions of dollars has been spent over the years by the likes of Newcrest Mining and IGO.
Newcrest was taken out by Newmont last year, and Antipa used its rights to move back to 100% of the Wilki project last month.
Antipa managing director Roger Mason said moving back to 100% of the Paterson tenements was a "fantastic result", giving it complete control around the flagship Minyari Dome project and returning to its access to ground littered with gold targets that had taken a back seat to IGO's copper focus.
"Antipa's foresight in recognising the regional opportunity within the Paterson, combined with our early-mover actions, has delivered a significant advantage that is beginning to reveal itself," Mason said.
Aircore drilling completed late in 2024 extended the GEO-01 and Rizzo prospects and offered early promising results from the Collie geophysical target 11km north and along-trend from Rio Tinto's Winu discovery.
Collie is under 150m of cover, and while only one of two aircore-diamond holes hit the target, finding anomalous lead, copper, tungsten, zinc, cobalt and pathfinder anomalism, it suggested there is a mineral system nearby that may explain the geophysical anomaly.
A wider ultrafine soil survey west of Minyari didn't deliver any obvious results, and drilling at other prospects was either unsuccessful or proved too difficult, possibly informing IGO's decision.
The Paterson can be a difficult place to work, especially in areas with thick cover.
Antipa is confident that data will support its renewed regional exploration planning of what is a wide-open, greenfields search space.
The question is: what is next on IGO's chopping block? It retains a significant landholding in the Paterson, at 100% and with the likes of Encounter Resources, Cyprium Metals, and TechGen Metals.
Other exploration assets involve massive holdings in WA's Kimberley, Fraser Range, and South West Terrane, the Northern Territory, and South Australia. Only time will tell how much of it will stay in the mix as it moves to reprioritise its focus towards organic growth over its previous lust for belt-scale frontier opportunities.
Antipa shares were up 2.6% today to 40c, capitalising the explorer at $256 million.
The stock has traded between 9-50c over the past year.
This morning, IGO's shares hit their lowest level since 2017 at $3.09. Later in the session, the stock bounded back to $3.37, capitalising the miner at $2.6 billion. It has lost almost 60% of its value over the past year.