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The Australian - Gold developer Antipa shines bright for mining experts as investors chase next big thing

By Kristie Batten

•  A panel at last week’s Resources Rising Stars Gather Round conference almost unanimously chose Antipa Minerals as their top stock

• Hedley Widdup also likes fellow gold developer Medallion for its re-rate potential

• The panel also discussed their top commodity picks

The closing panel discussion at last week’s Resources Rising Stars Gather Round conference in Adelaide named their top stocks and commodities for the rest of the year.

Develop Global (ASX:DVP) managing director Bill Beament said his top pick was Antipa Minerals (ASX: AZY).

His call led to emphatic agreement from Chester Asset Management’s Anthony Kavanagh, which is unsurprising, given Chester is Antipa’s largest shareholder with 13% of the company.

“I’d have to join the chorus on that,” Lion Selection Group managing director Hedley Widdup added.

Lion also sits on the Antipa register with 3.6% of the stock.

Like many others in the market, Beament said he liked Antipa due to its proximity to Greatland Resources’ Telfer mine and Havieron project in Western Australia’s Paterson Province.

Telfer produced 249,887 ounces of gold and 11,022 tonnes of copper in the nine months to March 31, putting it on track to meet or slightly beat its full-year guidance of 260,000-310,000oz of gold.

While production from the large Havieron project is still several years away, Greatland recently lifted the resource at Telfer to 8 million ounces of gold and 370,000t of copper, extending its life.

But Telfer’s grades sit at 0.59 grams per tonne gold and 0.09% copper, which is where Antipa comes in.

Earlier this month, Antipa updated the resource for its Minyari project, 35km from Telfer, to 69 million tonnes at 1.33g/t gold for 2.9Moz of gold, 91,000t of copper, 880,000oz of silver, and 13,000t of cobalt, or 3.6Moz of gold equivalent at 1.62g/t AuEq.

The updated resource will underpin a pre-feasibility study, to be released later this year.

A 2024 scoping study found that Minyari could produce around 128,000oz per annum at all-in sustaining costs of $1722 an ounce over around 10 years for pre-production capital costs of $306 million.

“While Antipa will likely present a standalone scenario in the PFS, the appeal of latent capacity at the Telfer processing facility, around 40km to the south, warrants investigation from a toll treatment perspective, in our view,” Canaccord Genuity analyst Paul Howard said this month, while reiterating a speculative buy rating and $1.25 price target.

Other faves

Widdup has a lot of top picks, as evidenced by Lion Selection’s investments in companies including Brightstar Resources (ASX: BTR), Koonenberry Gold (ASX: KNB) and Caspin Resources (ASX: CPN).

“For right now, I think something which is developing but not operating, so it doesn't have a huge fuel burn, and has really great growth potential at the development stage,” he said.

“So, it's getting to the point of cashflow, a great re-rate coming and growth potential on top of that – Medallion Metals.”
Lion Selection has invested $8 million in Medallion Metals (ASX:MM8) and holds just under 5%.

Medallion made a final investment decision on its Forrestania gold-copper project (formerly known as Ravensthorpe) in WA in February after raising $60 million, securing a US$50 million loan facility from Trafigura and completing the acquisition of a plant from IGO.

The $138 million project is expected to produce 374,000oz of gold and 15,000t of copper over 5.7 years, generating an average of $150 million pre-tax cashflow per annum at metal prices of $5200/oz gold and $6.50 per pound copper and $223 million of pre-tax cashflow per annum at $6300/oz of gold and $7.30/lb of copper.

As well as Beament’s Develop, Kavanagh’s other pick was South Australian copper play Havilah Resources.

Last month, Havilah received $105 million in cash and shares from mid-tier producer Sandfire Resources, which will now spend $30 million on exploration at the Kalkaroo project.

Sandfire can pay another $105 million cash within two years to secure 80% of the project.

“ trading at less than the prospective cash backing for an asset that I think will be worth billions, to be honest,” Kavanagh said.

“Their 20% stake is worth a couple of bucks per share, so no downside, 300% upside.”

Bell Potter Securities deputy head of research Stuart Howe had three picks: tin explorer Sky Metals, growing gold play Minerals 260 and palladium developer Chalice Mining.

Bells has speculative buy ratings on all three with a price target of 30c for Sky, 90c for Minerals 260 and $4 for Chalice.

Metal picks

The panel remained bullish on gold prices despite the recent pullback.

“I think that you sell what you can at the start of a crisis, and we've seen that at the start of COVID, the start of the GFC, that gold often sells off first,” Kavanagh said.

“If we are going into a stagflationary environment, which it feels like we are given the bottlenecks that we've seen in the world, it does feel like gold will be one of those commodities that outperforms in that environment.

“I hate making macro calls, but I think gold from here is probably going to be one of the outperformers in the next 12 months.”

The panellists were also big fans of lithium.

Howe said the recent bounce in prices was both cyclical and structural.

“It's structural for a couple of reasons. One is, we're doing a whole reimagining of how transport operates,” he said.

Howe said incentive prices in the previous cycle were lower but would naturally rise in line with the global cost curve.

“It's cyclical, because the most recent rally in lithium, I think, a lot of that has been about supply chain in the lithium space and re-stocking,” he said.

“There was an inventory there that was depleted during the downturn, and now that's turned around and everyone's buying again.”

Develop has the Pioneer Dome lithium project in WA and last month, Beament met with the head of supply chain for Chinese electric vehicle giant BYD.

“BYD use 13.3% of the world's lithium tonnes per year – that's 250,000 tonnes out of a 1.5 million tonne market,” he said.

“In three years’ time, they’re going to half a million tonnes – and this is before Iran.

“I found that stunning what BYD was talking about. That's in three years, so that's 26% without any supply coming on.”

Party to roll on

As well as the famous Lion Mining Clock, Widdup often refers back to Cinderella when trying to work out where we are in the cycle.

“I've got a lot of sympathy for Cinderella at the moment, because the end of the boom is where Cinderella's coach turns back into a pumpkin,” he said.

“I think people are quite familiar with when the party's over and you're standing there going, ‘what the hell did I miss?’”

The start of the party, or when Cinderella arrived, was the start of 2025.

Widdup suggested Cinderella overindulged, having three quick drinks then briefly retreating to the bathroom to collect herself.

“But she's coming back to dance quite short – that's my view,” he said.

“An oil crisis is only going to interrupt that, but when we look back at now in 10 years’ time, I think we'll say, ‘s**t that happened quickly, didn't it?’ but things returned to normal quite quickly, particularly in terms of commodity prices.”

Widdup maintained his view that it’s seven o’clock, which is an hour after the start of the party – aka the start of the boom.

“Most parties, if they go for six hours, we've still got five hours of whatever you do at parties to go.”

At Stockhead, we tell it like it is. While Antipa Minerals, Medallion Metals, Caspin Resources, Brightstar Resources and Koonenberry Gold are Stockhead advertisers, they did not sponsor this article.

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